


Give Me Time

by TheAfterglow



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Wedding Singer (1998)
Genre: 007 Phasma, Alternate Universe - 1980s, And Ben's Engaged to Bazine... but not for long, F/M, Heartbreak then hookups, Rey's Engaged... to Unkar, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Wedding Singer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-05-19 23:52:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAfterglow/pseuds/TheAfterglow
Summary: Ben Solo had observed that weddings came in all shapes and sizes: some large, some small, some secular, some religious. Many weddings had lots of flowers, others none, and where some were somber, others were borderline sacrilegious. Just as people came in all configurations, so did their celebrations, and he loved every last one.In four years of singing at weddings, he had yet to attend one that had no redeeming qualities. What was not to love?





	1. Chapter 1

_May 1985_

_Ridgefield, CT_

 

 **Ben Solo had observed** that weddings came in all shapes and sizes: some large, some small, some secular, some religious. Many weddings had lots of flowers, others none, and where some were somber, others were borderline sacrilegious. Just as people came in all configurations, so did their celebrations, and he loved every last one. 

This one was… pink. A shade lighter than Pepto Bismal decorated the chairs, the tablecloths, the centerpieces, the bridesmaids’ taffeta dresses and matching dyed satin shoes. It wouldn’t have been his choice, but to each his own. He didn’t have to look at the pictures twenty years later, either. 

In four years of singing at weddings, he had yet to attend one that had no redeeming qualities. What was not to love? He was here on the happiest day of people’s lives, after the stress was over and helping the party happen. 

“Alright, this one goes out to all you lovers on the dance floor!” Ben breathed into the mike. “Congratulations again, Chet and Angela-- you two look beautiful together!” 

The opening chords of their regular post-buffet number crackled through the speakers and Ben bounced his heel in time as the drummer kicked in. They’d played quietly, inoffensively through people eating, and now it was time to kick things up a notch.  A jazzy standard filtered through a modern pop lens, one designed to get young and old on the hardwood and moving. The baked ziti was rolled away, cannoli piled on silver trays, and Great Aunt Maude nodded off in her sherry at table seven. 

He surveyed the crowd as he crooned. First the older generation lit up in recognition of the tune from their youth and shuffled to the dance floor, then teenaged cousins shrugged and reluctantly followed. Chet and Angela extracted themselves from behind the head table and made their way into the fray with the bride hoisting her skirt up to allow her movement. A cry went up from the crowd and they made a circle around the couple, cheering as the bride and her groom began grinding in a way that was in no way befitting of Ella Fitzgerald. 

“Y’all are getting crazy in here!” Ben chuckled and wiped his forehead. “I’m gonna take five, but our keyboardist here has a special number for you.”

Hux stepped to the microphone and preened for a moment, waiting for the audience to settle. His outfit tonight consisted of a puffy shirt that was at least a size too big, a crushed velvet vest over it, and faux leather leggings tucked into over-the-knee boots. Ben hopped off the front of the stage and watched for a moment. 

Hux closed his eyes as he waited for his cue. In his humble opinion, Hux always delivered this song in too tremulous of a voice, but then Ben wouldn't sing this number if his life depended on it.

_Give me time_

_To realize my crime_

_Let me love..._

Ben beelined to the loading dock behind the hall to get some fresh air, but not before he crossed paths with a boy not more than twelve looking green around the gills. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and Ben narrowed his eyes at the service tray with a number of empty wine glasses beside him. 

“You gonna hurl?”

“Uh, huh,” the kid managed before gagging, as if admitting it aloud caused him more distress than before. 

“Alright, c’mon,” Ben guided the boy ahead of him with his hands braced on his shoulders, through the kitchen and out into the cool night air. “You just need to breathe.”

The kitchen bustled with activity and Ben smiled to see the chef pinch one of the waitresses’ bottoms as she leaned into the refrigerator to retrieve more butter dyed pink and molded into the shape of two hearts entwined. They burst out the back door and breaking Ben’s hold, the boy took two long steps before retching into the waiting dumpster. Ben was loosening his tie when a polite cough caused him to turn away from the shitshow in front of him. 

A young brunette woman wearing a server’s uniform perched on the edge of the dock, her long legs dangling off the edge. He’d seen her inside, threading her way between the tables under a heavy tray of industrial wedding food: salmon filets with lemon-caper sauce and haricots verts. She’d made it through the entire hall with only one plate removed from her load and ducked back into the kitchen. 

No one ever wanted the fish at a wedding. 

“Sorry,” Ben motioned towards the boy. “Too much pink wine.”

To his surprise, the girl blurted out, “Everything is too fucking pink at this wedding!”

Her accent sounded English to him and he laughed at her honesty. 

“You’re not a pink kinda gal, huh?”

Just then the boy straightened up and lurched towards Ben. He caught the kid in one arm and opened the screen door to the kitchen for him. “Try some water or soda,” he suggested gently before turning back to her. 

“So you're the wedding singer.” She looked him up and down and he straightened up a hair at her appraisal. It was hard to look smooth in a baby-blue tux with a ruffled shirt, but he’d refused to wear pink to work this gig. A smattering of freckles dotted her nose and cheek bones and her green eyes glinted in the street lamp light. If he were five years younger and not engaged to be married to the love of his life in two weeks, he might've tried to get her number.

“And you’re the fish girl,” Ben replied. “No one ever wants the fish.”

“No, they sure don't.” She looked away to take a deep drag on the cigarette she held in her off-hand.

“I'm Ben,” he offered his hand. “Welcome to the First Order.”

She eyed it suspiciously before offering the backside of her hand closest to him in a mock, upside down handshake. 

“Rey.” 

“Do you mind if I-- ?” 

  
“Of course not,” she scooted over a bit, unnecessarily making room. He lowered himself to the concrete dock beside her, hoping there was nothing on the stoop that would stain his tux. If he was careful, he could go a few weeks between dry cleanings for the pants and every penny helped. 

“Are you new in town? I’ve never seen you working a wedding before, unless Vito had you on the awkward teenage rite-of-passage circuit.”

“I just moved here,” Rey confirmed as she stubbed out her smoke and flicked the butt towards the dumpster. “I started last week-- this is my big debut. How about you?”

“I’m from Ridgefield,” Ben chuckled. “Born here, grew up here, probably gonna die here.”

Rey whistled. “You’re the first Ridgefield native I’ve met.” She brushed her hair back from her face and that was when Ben saw the ring on her hand. It was… huge. A single solitaire stood up from a band encrusted with diamonds that wrapped clear around her finger.

Now it was his turn to whistle. 

“That’s a big rock you’ve got-- who’s the lucky guy?” 

To his surprise, Rey hid her hand between her black-clad legs and shrugged nonchalantly. A shadow of a scowl went over her features before she replied, “I’m not sure the guy who gave it to me is serious. I moved here to be closer to him, but he still works in the city and I barely see him. We’ve been engaged two years and…” 

She stopped talking and bit her lip, shaking her head. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear my life story.”

“Weddings take a lot of planning,” he said mildly. “Takes a lotta time to get one perfect.”

“You should know,” she smiled now. “How long have you been singing?”

Ben scrubbed his fist against his thigh, unsure how to answer. “Well, I used to be in a band, but that didn’t work out, so I’ve been doing weddings for about four years now. But I’m getting married in a couple weeks myself and it feels like we’ve been planning it for twice as long as I’ve been working weddings, so I feel you.”

“What was your band like?” Rey brightened considerably and didn’t remark on his wedding news whatsoever. “I love going to shows!”

Ben studied her for any trace of sarcasm before deciding it was safe. 

“We were a sort of punk-dark synth band,” he explained. “Imagine Joy Division meets Depeche--”

“Depeche Mode!” Rey fairly screeched. “That’s exactly what I thought from your description! Oh, and I _adore_ Joy Division!”

Ben smiled now, a real smile, and unbuttoned the two buttons over his chest. “Check this out,” he tugged the material to the side to reveal his t-shirt beneath.

Rey’s eyes widened and her mouth went slack in recognition when she saw the graphic. 

“Oh, that is my favorite of their records, but _Love Will Tear Us Apart_ is absolutely their best track even though it’s a b-side!”

“I know!” Ben nearly shouted. “It’s too dark for weddings, but I’m dying sing it again -- we used to cover it.” 

“Subversive,” Rey’s mouth twisted with pleasure. “I like it! What was your band’s name?”

Ben hesitated for a second. His heart was fluttering curiously and he knew he needed to get back inside before the crowd turned on Hux, but he hadn’t talked to anyone about his music in a long, long time. Rey’s eyes sparkled now and it made him proud to be able to tell someone new the story. 

“We were called Kylo and the Renovators,” he admitted. 

Rey’s eyes narrowed and he waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he explained further, “Kylo is my middle name, and--”

“Ben, you gotta get back in here! The crowd is getting suicidal,” his bassist Phasma interrupted them through the screen door. 

“Oh, shit!” Ben leapt to his feet.

“Tell me another time,” Rey waved him away. “And we should go to a show sometime!”

Ben paused at the door, buttoning his shirt again. Phasma gave him a withering glance before turning on her heel and stalking back through the kitchen. “You mean that?” 

“Of course,” Rey nodded fervently. “Let me give you my number.”

Ben’s hands went automatically to his back pockets before he remembered he had none in these dress pants. “Shit, I don’t have a pen.” 

“But I do!” Rey pulled one from her breast pocket. “Give me your hand.”

Ben knelt beside her and unbuttoned his cuff to expose his forearm. Her hands were very warm as she steadied his flesh to write her number, tongue between her lips in concentration. The nib stung slightly as she formed the last digit, the pen digging into the tender skin by his wrist. 

“There!” She underlined it with a flourish. 

“Thanks,” Ben looked at the numbers before meeting her eyes. “See you around, Fish Girl.”

“Not if I see you first, _Kylo_.” 

He bit his lip to hide his smile as he traipsed back through the kitchen to the hall. 

His middle name didn’t sound so bad after all with her accent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one asked for this, but that won't stop me! :D Of course this is based on the 1998 Adam Sandler film, The Wedding Singer. 
> 
> Hux's song is "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" by Culture Club. 
> 
> HMU on Tumblr - I'm @theafterglow-writes.


	2. Chapter 2

_Twelve days later…_  

Ben found himself surrounded by eyes, staring eyes. 

He tried not to look at them and keep his eyes on the sheet music in front of him, but it was nigh impossible with the number of framed family photos that decorated the piano and the bookshelf of dolls that stood behind it. Every surface of the house was covered with crocheted doilies, framed pictures, newspaper clippings, or plastic. The couch was encased in plastic just the same as the low-pile carpeting was protected by plastic runners. He didn’t understand this particular decorating style, but it suited his pupil. 

“Okay, remember-- deep breath, we’re coming up to a long phrase!” He leaned in with his upper body and drew a mock lungful of air to remind her where to breathe. 

As if Mrs. Maz Kanata needed any encouragement. She stretched her four-foot-eleven-inch frame up, up out of her red Worishofer sandals and warbled prettily through the tricky phrase with the key change.

_And there was music,_

_And there were wonderful roses_

_They tell me_

_In sweet, fragrant meadows_

_Of dawn and dew…_  

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Strong finish now!”

He joined in on the last bit, singing harmony with her as they wound down the final chorus.

Maz clapped her hands in delight as he played the final chords and perched next to him on the piano bench, swinging her skinny bird legs. 

“What do you think, will I be ready?” 

“I don’t think Mario’s gonna know what hit him,” Ben chuckled, taking a draught of the pink lemonade she’d mixed him when he’d arrived. “You’re doin’ great.”

“I can’t believe we’ve been married fifty years!” Maz clasped her hands to her chest and Ben could tell she was going to ask him something about his wedding. “Are you ready for your big day? It’s so soon!”

Ben replaced his glass on the coaster before answering carefully. “Yeah, we’ve got a couple more things to settle up, but we’re mostly ready. Pick up my tux, she’s gotta get her dress checked again--”

“Oh no, silly,” Maz interrupted him with a giggle. “I meant are you ready for the wedding night?”

If he’d still been drinking Ben was sure he would’ve sprayed lemonade on each and every grandkid smiling toothlessly back at him on Maz’s piano. 

“What about it?” Ben found vagary to be the safest route with the elderly. Make them explain themselves.

“Will it be your first time with intercourse?” Maz fixed him with a serious look as she adjusted her giant glasses. “It’s okay if it is.”

Ben felt his face turn a deep shade of red, though he couldn't tell why. He had lost his virginity at fifteen away at summer band camp to a bossy drum majorette from Michigan. She had liked his height, and he her prodigious breasts, and they had never spoken again after that. 

“Um, no?” It came out like a question. “How about you, were you nervous?”

“Oh, no!” Maz laughed raucously now, as though Ben had told a ridiculous joke. “We were very free in those days, much more than you kids now. I worked as a barkeep in the local tavern and I had lots of boyfriends before I met Mario.” 

“Oh yeah?” Ben asked before considering whether he wanted to know this information. “How many is ‘lots’?”

“At least thirteen, but I stopped counting.”

Ben took a long sip of his lemonade and nodded vigorously as he swallowed to avoid saying something regrettable, then coughed a bit into his fist to bide time.

“Well,” he finally managed, “I guess you can say you speak with experience! Listen, keep practicing, and I’ve gotta get going-- I’m sure Bazine’s got something she needs me to do.” 

“Oh! I left my purse at bingo last night.” Maz hopped off the bench and dashed into the kitchen. “Let me give you a meatball or two!”

Ben grinned as he packed his things, glancing at the photos once more. He was just picturing what his own kids might look like when Maz exclaimed, “Shoot! The Tupperware is all dirty!”

“That’s all right,” he called after her. “I can take a rain check on the meatballs, Maz.”

“Don’t be silly!” She emerged from the kitchen once more holding a ladle dripping marinara sauce. “Hold out your hands!”

“My… ?” Ben extended his palms without thinking and was rewarded with a gloopy, warm meatball in each one. He wondered how he was going to drive home with his hands covered in sauce but gamely raised one hand and took and enormous bite.

“These are so good, Maz--thank you.”

Maz beamed up at him. “You’re going to be a wonderful husband, Benjamin. Bazine is a lucky girl.”

“I’m the lucky one,” he managed around his mouthful. “Good luck at the anniversary celebration-- I wish I could be there.”

“Pish!” Maz was defiant. “You’ll be on your honeymoon! I wish I could be _there_ again!”

* * *

 

_Meanwhile across town…_

Rey slapped her alarm clock once more and rolled onto her back, stretching to her full height beneath the covers. The black lace curtains she’d hung over her lone window didn’t block out the June morning sun fully, but they did wonders to allow her to a nice lie-in after being on her feet until one AM the night before. 

The wedding circuit, she’d learned, was brutal. She’d taken the gig at First Order on a good rec from her former roommate in the city, but it was ten times worse than waitressing at a bar or restaurant. 

For starters, there were no tips. The bartenders pooled their jars but didn’t share with the wait staff. 

Second, her bottom had been pinched more than a baby’s cheeks in the nearly two weeks she’d worked. It seemed like every old man with a glass of boxed wine in hand felt it his duty to grab a handful of her rear as she sidled between tables with her hands full of a tray so she couldn’t slap them away. One old coot had left her with a bruise on her upper thigh. 

Third, it occupied her evenings on Thursdays through Sundays, the days she thought she’d be seeing Unkar more often by moving here. With him working long hours on the street weekdays and her working weekends, they barely saw one another aside from a few quick champagne brunches at the country club before his tee time. When 11:30 hit, he’d be off to his boys with a peck on her forehead and leave her with a half bottle of bubbly to finish. 

Alone.

Rey grabbed her Walkman off the bedside table and flipped the cassette back to side one. Closing her eyes, she thumbed the play button and dozed as the b-side spooled out. 

_The grabbing hands grab all they can_

_All for themselves after all_

 

_It’s a competitive world_

_Everything counts in large amounts_

 

She had to smile at the irony of the song. And the wedding gig wasn’t so bad, not really. She worked with Rose, and the wedding singer, Ben, seemed a decent sort. They got fed and sometimes leftovers to bring home. 

In fact, his wedding was the day after tomorrow, and she was slated to work it. The Netal-Solo nuptials. Colors: black and red. Buckets of red roses had begun arriving yesterday to the hall, along with the rented black tablecloths and napkins.

“Pretty morbid for a wedding,” Rose remarked offhandedly as they unpacked the boxes. “Especially for summertime!”

“I like it,” Rey shrugged. “It’s distinctive.” 

“Okay, weirdo!” Rose rolled her eyes. 

A sharp rap on her bedroom door preceded it opening and Unkar striding in to stand over her. Her fiancé was a large man in all senses of the word - he walked heavy, talked loudly, yelled louder, and resembled a buffalo with wide shoulders and a narrow waist that tapered to relatively thin legs. He chose to wear wide-legged trousers to even out his frame. 

“Rey-by!” He fairly shouted and motioned for her to take off her headset. “Are you deaf? I’ve been knocking for like an hour!”

“Babe!” Rey sat up and smiled sweetly at him. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were here.”

“Jesus,” Unkar surveyed her room before perching on the edge of her bed. “It looks like a funeral parlor in here.” 

Rey stopped her tape and continued smiling at him. “I didn’t think I’d see you before Saturday morning--this is a lovely surprise!”

Unkar puffed up a little, smoothing his tie down. She knew he was particularly proud of this tie, one he’d bought when he made his first big windfall a few years back. It was Hermes, which he stubbornly insisted on pronouncing _her-mees_ no matter how many times she gently corrected him with her rudimentary schoolgirl French. 

“I wanted to surprise you,” he grinned, drawing an envelope from his jacket’s inner pocket and handing it to her. 

It was a sleek, glossy paper with the logo of a bird swooping towards a sun.

“What is this?” She didn’t dare open it without his say-so. 

“Open it,” he smiled magnanimously. “I think you’re gonna like it.”

Rey’s heart fluttered and she slid her nail beneath the adhesive to separate the flap. It took her a moment to comprehend what she was seeing inside. 

Airline tickets. 

August 15, 1985. JFK to Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Coach class. 

“What is this?” She asked again, truly not understanding. 

Unkar’s grin broadened into a toothy smile. “August…? Vegas….? You, me, a little white chapel? Whaddya say, Rey-by? Don’t you think it’s time we finally tied the knot?”

Rey closed the flap gently and she gave him a tight smile. “It’ll be great,” she said quietly. 

Nevermind it wasn’t what she had pictured at all, but--

“Rey, you gonna do the girl thing? Say you’re happy now but run around and tell all your girlfriends how much I suck?”

“No, of course not!” Rey was indignant that he thought she was that kind of girl. She considered herself a tough, streetwise type who loathed when girls manipulated men for money or favors. “Vegas it is! We’ve waited long enough.”

Unkar peered at her before he reached over and withdrew the tickets from her hand and tucked them back in his jacket. His enormous meaty hand fell on her thigh and he squeezed it through the blanket. 

“Alright,” he hung his head as though going to his last meal. “Forget Vegas. Let’s do it right-- church, big reception, all our friends. I know it’s what you want.” 

Rey stared at him, not sure she had heard correctly. She stilled his hand on her leg and squeaked, “Really?”

Unkar beamed again now. “Really.”

She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a sloppy kiss. 

“It’ll be perfect, you’ll see!” Rey whispered as she brushed a tear from her cheek. “Perfect.”

He pulled her away with a gentle tug of her ponytail. 

“Okay, I gotta get to the city,” he replied. “Money doesn’t make itself, and sounds like you’ve got something expensive in mind.”

He left as quickly as he had come, and Rey flopped face-first into her pillows to contain her squeals of delight. 

She was finally getting _married_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Maz's song is Till There Was You, the same song as this character sings in the movie. Bonus note, I sang this in high school choir! 
> 
> 2) Rey is listening to Everything Counts by Depeche Mode, off their 1983 album, Construction Time Again. 
> 
> 3) Unkar... ::shudder::


	3. Chapter 3

_June 7, 1985_

 

The day of his wedding dawned clear, sunny and thankfully cooler than predicted. A light breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees and bushes around the garden area behind the reception hall where two hundred white plastic chairs sat facing a small stage flanked with giant sprays of red roses tied with black satin ribbon. 

By three in the afternoon, Ben was dressed and sat reading a back issue of _Guitarist_ magazine in the gazebo to the right of the stage. Black velvet curtains pinned up around the frame hid him from view. While it was smaller than any green room the Renovators had ever used, it was more full of stuff than their tiny tour van had ever been. He glanced up at himself in the large mirror suspended from the structure’s ceiling by a wire and smoothed his hair to one side. The rental tux looked better than it had any right to with the black satin cumberbund and red bow tie. It looked smart and relatively classic, not like some of the dreck he occasionally saw that would be instantly regrettable. Hux had long since retreated from fussing over him to put on his own outfit inside the hall with the girls, a minor deviation from his normal get-ups to meet Bazine’s wishes. 

At three-thirty on the dot, Ben stood and emerged from the makeshift dressing room to stand on the stage. He greeted the onlookers in the front row, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, thanking their guests for being there. His chest swelled as he looked out at the audience--everyone who had been important in their young lives was here, ready to watch them make the commitment to each other for the rest of their lives.

Taking a deep breath, he smiled serenely as the music struck up and he waited for the wedding party to emerge from the building. Bazine had asked a small army of friends, cousins and sisters to be her bridesmaids, far too many for his three grooms-people, so some of them would be walking out alone after the flower girl and ring bearers.

By three forty-five, the processional music had looped twice and Ben felt himself becoming ever so slightly… not nervous, exactly. He wasn’t nervous to get married. After all, this is what they’d wanted since they were nineteen. No, he wasn’t nervous. Just concerned. They had rehearsed the ceremony six times the day before and the schedule Bazine’s mother had drawn up resembled that of a military parade. No beat of the big day was left off-script.   

The priest dabbed gently at his sweating forehead with a handkerchief embroidered with the cross before placing a soothing hand on Ben’s forearm. 

“It’ll be okay,” he murmured. “The bride always takes her time. You can’t rush women.”

The man had been Bazine’s family’s priest since she was a little girl, so Ben drew a deep breath to steady himself even as the audience shifted restlessly and fanned themselves with the paper programs. Ben tipped his chin at the music coordinator to indicate she should flip and play the cassette once more. She shrugged and after a moment’s pause, Pachabel’s Canon spooled out again through the portable speakers. 

At four, his heart leapt when the door of the reception hall opened, only to sink a moment later to see his mother and Hux emerge from it. 

They cut an odd figure, these two, as they proceeded swiftly up the aisle towards him. Hux was as tall and spindly as his mother was petite and sturdy, and while Hux radiated a nervous, birdlike energy, Leia looked as stalwart as a judge presiding over her courtroom. 

“Turn your mic off,” she directed the priest, who knew better than to argue and stepped back to give them space. 

“Mom, what’s going on?”

Leia glanced at Hux, who was already sniffling but trying to hide it with cursory wipes of his cuff. 

“Where’s Baz?”

“Ben,” Leia spoke softly but it was her no-nonsense, don’t-you-dare-argue-with-me-young-man tone. “I’m afraid… Bazine’s not coming today.”

Hux choked back what sounded like a sob and shook his head. Ben looked between them before stuffing his hands in his pockets and asking the only question he could think of. 

“Um… is she sick? She’s okay, right?” 

Leia’s lips formed a line and she glanced at Hux as well before answering. “Yes. She’s okay, but she’s not coming. She’s okay, but she’s just… not gonna make it here.”

Ben was distantly aware of the whispers swelling amongst their guests, of the wind blowing his hair down his forehead into his eyes, of the left hand speaker popping as though the plug wasn’t seated correctly in the socket, but his focus narrowed down to his mother’s lips as she spoke to him. It felt like he was diving and the words were reaching his ears slowly and were distorted by the water. 

“What do you mean, ‘not coming’?” The question sounded stupid through the rushing of blood in his ears, quieting all the background noise. “We’ve been planning this for a _year_.”

Leia took his giant hands in her small ones and rubbed his knuckles with her thumbs as she continued. “Her mother said there was a note in her room at home. It seems Baz has changed her mind about things.”

Ben stared at his mother for a moment before his gaze drifted up and out. The person it settled on was the new girl, Rey, standing stock still next to the music booth holding a tray of plastic champagne flutes. He locked eyes with her for a second before he muttered, “Excuse me for a minute.”

He turned abruptly on his heel and disappeared back into the gazebo where he turned in a tight circle. Colors swam in front of his eyes as they adjusted to the relative dark after the bright sunlight and he leaned heavily on the card table in front of the mirror. 

“You’re okay, man,” he whispered to his own reflection. “This is just a little bump in the road, it’s gonna be alright.”

That wasn’t the truth though, and Ben knew it as soon as the words left his lips. His fists balled the tablecloth covering the table and he yanked, sending all of the toiletries Hux had left out clattering to the wood floor. There was an audible gasp from outside the structure at the noise, but that didn’t stop him as he grabbed the nearest folding chair and slammed it into the mirror. 

 

* * *

 

The clock showed eight forty in the evening when Ben made his way to the front steps of his mom’s house with his third slice of cake. The chocolate frosting didn’t taste good anymore and the red velvet interior sickened him but he kept picking at it anyway.  The light was fading quickly now that the sun had set, and porch lights went on up and down his mother’s block. 

Sighing deeply, Ben placed the cake to the side and hung his head. 

Everyone else had gone home now and the house was almost totally quiet save for the television upstairs in his mom’s room. At first he had welcomed the company--Hux and Phasma, his uncle Luke, his mother and her friend Lando-- but by seven he felt irritated by their repeated put-downs of Bazine and he shooed them.

Ben kept turning over the events of the last week in his head, trying to understand things in a different way that could’ve lead to this outcome, but each time he came to the same vision: the door opened. Her seven bridesmaids in red tulle dresses and his three groomsmen in tuxedos came out. Then Bazine walked through it in her beautiful dress on her father Tony’s arm.

And then they got married.

Happily ever after. 

Ben scoffed. It was stupidly simple, really. He didn’t know why it had taken six run-throughs to get it straight. They could’ve gone to city hall and the result would’ve been the same. 

They would be married. By now they should’ve had their first dance, the cake would’ve been served, speeches would’ve been given. His dad might have bothered to show up to make a sloppy, embarrassing toast but he thought he might have enjoyed that. What was a wedding for,  if not for your old man to be a little embarrassing? 

Ben was thinking of his parents’ breakup when he heard footsteps on the sidewalk leading up to the house and he knew, he knew without even looking, who it was. 

He raised his head to take in the sight. 

“Hey,” Bazine said, her voice barely audible. She twisted one manicured finger around a lock of her long, feathered black hair. 

“Hey,” Ben nodded but didn’t move from his seat. “You’re a little late.”

“Benny,” Bazine pouted. “I thought I owed you an explanation.”

He just looked at her and shrugged, waiting for her to continue. She hesitated for a minute, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She was wearing an old black Renovators t-shirt with the neck cut out so her right shoulder was exposed and a strip of her middle was bare above her black acid wash jeans.    

“So I’ve been talking to my friends,” she began. 

“Jesus Christ,” Ben muttered. “I knew it. Why do you listen to those idiots?”

“Let me explain,” she pleaded. “I was talking to my friends, and I think I figured out what’s been bothering me.”

The sinking feeling from the afternoon returned to his middle. 

“It’s just….” Bazine trailed off and sighed dramatically. “I woke up this morning, and I just realized, I was about to marry _a wedding singer_.” 

Ben stared at her. “I’ve been a wedding singer for the last four years, that’s hardly new information.”

“I know, and that’s exactly it,” Bazine’s green eyes flashed. “I realized, I’m in love with Ben from five years ago, not 1985 Ben.”

“Well, I still love 1985 Bazine, so I feel like you might’ve brought this to my attention yesterday,” he retorted. 

Bazine’s eyes narrowed and she studied him like he was a small child who refused to accept a universal truth. 

“You barely even know me anymore,” Bazine’s words cut like a knife. “If you weren’t so obsessed with getting married, you might have seen that.” 

“You wanted to get married too!” Ben heard his pitch rising as disbelief hit him. “What else is there to know? We’ve known each other since the 8th grade, Baz, and I--”  

“Nuh-uh,” Bazine waggled one long red acrylic at him. “I wanted to marry _Kylo_ , lead singer from Kylo and the Renovators. Back when we were fun, remember? I loved going to see you guys play, seeing you jumping around and twitching like Ian Curtis--”

“Ian Curtis killed himself,” Ben deadpanned. “Are you saying you’d rather I was dead?” 

“No! It’s just… You’re a wedding singer, babe, and you’re never gonna leave Ridgefield, and I can’t. That’s it -- I just can’t.” 

“What’s wrong with Ridgefield? It’s a great place to live, we grew up here, it’s a great place to raise kids--”

“Where, in your mother’s basement?!” Bazine’s sarcasm made her voice hoarse. “We can’t raise kids with you making sixty bucks a wedding, teaching music lessons to people for free, living with your mom and me doing nails at the salon!” 

Ben shot up from the steps at this. “Again, these are things you could’ve brought to my attention _yesterday_!!”  

Bazine had the decency to look chastised, but she stood her ground. “You wouldn’t have heard me if I’d told you, Benny! You’re in love with _love_ , not with me--not any more.”

He sat as suddenly as he’d stood and all the fight went out of him. He sighed deeply several times before it occurred to him to say something completely beyond the pale. “I guess I shoulda seen this coming, huh? I mean, there was a reason the other kids in the band called you the bicycle. And I was dumb enough to believe that changed when we got together.”

Bazine’s mouth fell open at his outburst. “You’re _such_ an asshole, Ben--just like your dad!” 

She whirled unsteadily on her kitten heels and marched away, one middle finger held up in salute. 

“That’s right, I _am_ an asshole,” Ben repeated to himself, and picked up his third slice of cake to polish it off. “And so are you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ian Curtis was the lead singer of Joy Division, in case anyone didn't know that! Thanks for reading this silly romp through the 80s!
> 
> HMU on Tumblr - I'm @theafterglow-writes.


	4. Chapter 4

In her three and a half years of serving drinks in the city, Rey had seen all kinds of drunks. Many were happy, some became loud, while others faded into themselves in a sort of quiet despair that made her heart ache. There was no telling which a man would become by the sort of person who walked through the door at five o’clock, either; alcohol was a strange alchemy that revealed people’s true natures more often than not.

She should’ve been ashamed of herself, but she always took really good care of the quiet ones-- they were the best tippers. It didn’t cost her anything to sit down beside them on a slow night and listen to their troubles, and hearing their woes usually made her feel better about herself, about where her own young life was headed. She was an independent woman, living on her own in a foreign country, and she was engaged to a successful, self-made man. 

Ben Solo would be a sad drunk, she decided. It was only two weeks after his wedding debacle and he slouched on stage, mumbling his way through his banter and slurring the words of the songs. She couldn’t tell if he’d actually been drinking, but his demeanor since arriving at the hall  and performance this evening were aligned in a perfect pitch of total misery. 

“Someone has to do something,” Rose whispered at the water station near the bar.  “It’s way too soon for Ben to be back at a wedding. Look at him!”

The band wound down the most pathetic take of _Holiday_ Rey had ever heard and the girls turned around when Ben began speaking.

“Alright, that was one from Madonna,” he mumbled. “Michael and Misty-- look at you kids! _So happy_ here on your wedding day.”

He said it as though announcing they had died.

The bride and groom glanced at one another and shifted uneasily in the special chairs. The First Order had five sets of chairs to choose from, and this one was supposed to look tropical. Personally, Rey thought the couple’s chairs more closely resembled something an African dictator might select as a throne following a violent military coup, but she kept that impression to herself. The proprietor, Vito, was very proud of all the chairs as it set First Order apart from the other competition across town.

“Mike, you’re a lucky man,” Ben continued. “Misty showed up! That’s a great start, don’t you think? You’re already ahead in life.” 

“Oh shit,” Rey breathed. “What is he doing?”

“Yep, that’s lucky,” Ben nodded sarcastically. “Ever wonder if there really is someone for everyone? Maybe that old saying isn’t true-- ‘every pot has its lid’? Well, maybe some of us are like… bundt pans. Those things don’t have lids--”

“Buddy, I’m paying you to sing, not work through your therapy needs!” The bride’s father’s voice cut through the hall. 

Ben broke off to stare in the general direction of the complaint. He squinted into the stage lights before responding. 

“Well, _sir_...” He used the formality but said it with the utmost disrespect, “I have the microphone, and you do not, which pretty much makes me the Supreme Leader here, now doesn’t it?”

The hall couldn’t have been more still and Hux struck one chord of the next song on the keyboard before realizing no one else was joining in. He cringed and stepped away from the instrument and looked like he would rather have disappeared into the backdrop. Rey felt the tension vibrating through the hall now, the audience frozen watching the spectacle.

It was probably the most exciting thing they’d seen in years.

“You are the worst wedding singer ever!” The man would not be deterred from his criticism. “And I want a refund!!”

Ben slid the mic from its stand and slowly wrapped the excess cord around his hand as he stepped down from the stage onto the dance floor. He walked within six feet of the table where the man sat before speaking again and he held a length of the wire taught between his hands. He was a tall man, and there was no doubt he could probably hold his own in a fight, but Rey’s stomach clenched nonetheless. 

“Sir, one more outburst from you and I will strangle you with this microphone cord.” He said it directly into the mic, and the words hung in the air for seconds that seemed to last hours.

The guests gasped in unison and as best as Rey could remember the sequence of events, the man landed one solid punch to Ben’s gut before the entire family got in on the action.

* * *

_Three hours later…_

Rey pushed the screen door to the loading dock open with her rear holding a five gallon pail of shrimp shells in front of her on her way to the dumpster. She paused for a moment, finally alone, to squint up at the stars that were barely visible beyond the harsh sodium vapor lights that lit the back employee parking area. 

This wedding was definitely memorable, she mused to herself. Perhaps even more so than the sad commotion of the failed Netal-Solo wedding two weeks prior, which had ended not in celebration, but in an hours-long packaging of leftovers into styrofoam clamshells for guests to take home. She and Rose had been eating the salmon for a week before they mutually agreed to throw it away. She hadn’t seen Ben again until today, but the seasoned workers at First Order talked about him in hushed tones almost as though he had died instead of being stood up at the altar. 

Her heart ached when she remembered how he looked when their eyes met right after he got the news from his mother: like it was only the two of them in the entire world and she could see straight into his soul. It had only lasted an instant, but Rey would swear she felt a strange connection to this man whom she’d only just met. 

Shaking off her reverie, she slogged towards the dumpster with the bucket bumping heaving against her knees and was about to lift it when a groan issued from the trash itself. 

“Oh!” Rey shrieked and dropped the bucket. It landed on its bottom edge and dumped shrimp bodies unceremoniously in a semi-circle at her feet. 

“Ben?”

“Oh, hey there,” Ben lifted a hand through a layer of wet coffee grounds. His suit looked stained beyond repair, but that didn’t strike Rey as a loss. It was a strange blue-green brocade printed with bamboo leaves that could probably double for this tropical-themed night as well as Asian weddings.

More concerning was the damage to his face. A black eye blossomed dark purple on his left, and a sizeable cut ran from his right eyebrow down his cheek, ending near the corner of his mouth.

“Are the cops still here?” He asked without making eye contact.

Rey crouched near the bin and shook her head. “Everyone’s gone now, we’re just cleaning the place up. The father still paid the band, but no tip.”

Ben was silent at this, then made to move but winced immediately. Rey winced too, realizing he might have a broken rib. One of the groom’s cousins, a giant teenager whose neck was as thick as his skull, had set to kicking Ben while he was lying on the ground before Phasma managed to pull the kid off and knee him in the balls.

“That was really brave of you,” she offered her hand. “To stand up for yourself like that.”

His eyes closed as he pursed his lips to one side. He shrugged as best he could and a mound of grounds sifted off his arm. 

“It wasn’t brave, it was stupid,” he replied. “Like me.”

“You want out of the rubbish bin? The truck is probably coming soon,” Rey extended her hand as best she could without touching the edge. The smell made her eyes water.

“I’m rubbish,” Ben mumbled as he sat up unassisted. “It’s exactly where I belong-- in the rubbish bin behind this rubbish hall in rubbish Ridgefield.”

Rey pressed her lips between her teeth to help him step out of the dumpster onto the dock but didn’t comment on his statement.

Once he was upright and shaking the garbage off his ruined jacket, she offered, “I’m sorry about your wedding.”

“Sorry? Nothing for you to be sorry about!” Ben shook his head. “Baz is right, I’m a loser. Why would anyone wanna marry me?”

Rey was stunned. “Why would anyone say that? You’re not a loser!”

Ben slung his jacket over his shoulder by one finger and set to unbuttoning the collar of his garbage-soaked tux shirt with the other. 

“Because it’s the truth,” he said flatly. “She wants to move on, and I wanna stay right here. We want different things but neither of us is willing to change. I thought we were right here, together, but I was wrong.”

Rey crossed her arms and shook her head gently. “Things can change,” she insisted. “I felt like that too just a bit ago, but you know what happened?”

Ben just stared at her, his eyes bloodshot. She realized he was in no mood to play a guessing game and forged on. 

“We finally set a date! For our wedding!”

Ben’s gaze drifted slowly down before he responded. “Congratulations. When’s the big day?”

“The fifteenth of August,” Rey couldn’t help but smile even as a nervous pang gripped her stomach. It was barely two months away and they’d--she’d--done nothing yet to plan. Unkar had made it clear it was up to her to plan her perfect day. He didn’t want to get in the way or get it wrong, he’d said. And that planning weddings was girl stuff. 

“That’s pretty soon,” Ben’s eyebrows lifted a touch. “Stuff books up pretty fast around here.”

“Well, we’re still looking for a band,” Rey said, her eyebrow raised in suggestion. “Would you--”

“No way,” Ben shook his head and her stomach fell again. “We’re done with the wedding circuit. Most people want DJs these days, anyway. It’s cheaper, they play longer… Plus I hate weddings now.”

He moved around her and started down the crumbling concrete steps of the dock towards his car before she could reply. Midway across the lot, he turned and called back to her.

“Hey, what’s your guy’s name, anyway?”

“Oh,” Rey crossed her arms. “He’s called Unkar. Unkar Plutt.”

To her surprise, a slow, loopy smile began to twist Ben’s features. He walked back a couple steps before he said, “Plutt? Like it rhymes with ‘butt’?!”

A giggle escaped her at his crudeness before she could school her face back to seriousness. 

“I suppose I never thought of that,” Rey said. “But yes.”

“Oh my God, your kids are gonna get teased so bad,” Ben laughed now, shaking his head. A hysterical, exhausted laughter wracked his frame and before long, it did Rey’s, too.

“And…” Rey snorted through her laugher. “He likes to call me ‘Rey-by’, like baby, but it--”

“Sounds like rabies?!” Ben howled now, doubling over before straightening back up in pain. “That’s it, your nickname is ‘Rabies Butt’ from now on!”

Their laughter at the absurdity petered out in fits and starts before she tried a different tack. 

“Look, I understand if you don’t want to sing, but… I’m new here and I have two months to plan a wedding. It would be great if someone who’s from here could help me.”

“Nah…” Ben declined, but it sounded half-hearted to her. “Rose is from here-- we went to high school together.”

“Rose is busy with junior college,” Rey hedged. “She’s studying to become a nurse. This is just her weekend job, she doesn’t have time to help. And I’m an orphan.” 

“Jesus, you’re killing me,” Ben retorted. “Now you’re a Rabies Butt _orphan_? What are you, a Dickens character?”

“Please?”

Her entreaty hung between them for a long moment. She didn’t know why, but she knew she would despair if he turned her down. He _had_ to help her. 

They could help each other. 

“Fine,” Ben finally nodded and her heart leaped. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We don’t have time to waste.”

“Thank you,” Rey clasped her dirty hands together. “You have no idea how much this means to me, Ben. Really.”

He turned on his heel and sauntered towards his burgundy 1976 Ford Escort wagon while raising his free hand in a mock goodbye.

“See you around, Rabies Butt.”


	5. Chapter 5

While the following Monday morning dawned cool and a touch foggy, Rey rolled out of bed at seven-thirty on the dot. She slotted the mixtape of her favorite Cure tracks into their Casio boombox on the windowsill and lingered in the shower, still not over the luxury of water being included in her rent here in the suburbs. She had always cut her showers short in the city to stretch her shoestring budget as far as she could; better that she spend the money sweating out her frustrations at a club watching a band play than lingering by herself in the bath. It was a solitary pursuit that Unkar left her to. Their tastes in music did not overlap, and if she was honest, she had the feeling Unkar didn’t really care for music at all. She didn’t understand how a person could live without music, or be ambivalent about it. Even Rose and Jess were nonchalant about their favorite artists, which lead to her constantly making mix tapes for them to hear new things. 

Music was… well, it was Rey’s _everything_. She noticed it everywhere: in cars, at shops, outside on the boardwalk by the sea. Her body swayed in time with the rhythms as if by magic and she never felt freer than when she had spent a night dancing amongst strangers. 

To her, music was like... what was that mystical energy, the one from those silly outer space films everyone was so crazy for? Rey scrunched her eyes closed to rinse her hair. _The Force_. Unkar had insisted on seeing the third film in the series a half-dozen times in Times Square, even as he complained bitterly how the villain had “pussed out” in the end to save his son from the big-bad who resembled an albino prune in an ugly bathrobe.

Rey chuckled as she shut off the tap. The plots were garbage, but she’d enjoyed the music of the film. 

Rose was up drinking coffee in their breakfast nook when she emerged from the bathroom to present herself. 

“How do I look?” Rey twirled around and Rose peered blearily at her. “Late night studying?”

A slow smile twisted Rose’s lips. “Just a late night.” 

The words hung cryptically between them before Rey asked, “The guy at table nine?”

Rose giggled. “The _twins_ at table nine.”

Rey wrinkled her nose and turned away to pour some coffee for herself. She knew better than to ask questions about her roommate’s hookups but this one had more questions than they had time for right now. She had places to be.

“You look fine,” Rose finally answered. “If you intended to look like Robert Smith dressed like off-duty Madonna.”

Rey stood from finding cream in the refrigerator. “Is that a bad thing?”

Rose shrugged. “Depends. Where are you off to so early?”

“I’m meeting up with Ben to start doing some wedding planning,” Rey replied. 

“Ben…” Rose repeated. “Ben Solo?”

Rey could tell Rose’s hackles were up immediately. 

“Yes…?”

Rose took a long sip of her coffee and her eyes were large above the rim. 

“What about it?”

“Nothing!” Rose said it too quickly. “Nothing, it just seems like something Unkar should help you with. That’s all.”

“Is that all?” Rey perched on a chair across from her roommate. “Ben said you went to high school together.”

“I only meant that it’s so soon after he got dumped,” Rose explained. “Won’t it be kinda weird for him?I mean, you saw him at the wedding on Saturday. He was a wreck.” 

Rey stirred her coffee before answering. Rose was the first person she’d told about her newest assistant. She hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Unkar since Saturday, but she didn’t think he’d mind. He’d given her his credit card, pecked her on the forehead, and left for work. 

Unkar was always working. The markets never slept, he claimed, and was off to the city at all hours to watch the news at the office. 

“I asked, and Ben agreed.” Rey left it at that. “I’m sure he wouldn’t if he didn’t feel up to it.”

“Uh huh,” Rose sipped her coffee again without making eye contact. “Of course not.”

Just then, she heard a car turn into the driveway and Rey gulped her coffee in two large slugs. 

“I’ll see you for dinner, and I want to hear about the twins,” Rey called back as she darted to the door.

* * *

 

Ben wore his Joy Division t-shirt and a pair of jeans despite the summer weather above a pair of well-loved leather trainers and leaned across to open the passenger door for her from the inside. 

“Morning,” he greeted her, taking in her outfit without comment but she thought a trace of a smile crossed his face. She felt self-conscious after Rose’s assessment but thought better of asking his opinion. The vintage Smiths tour t-shirt she’d cut the neck out of showed off her shoulders nicely and she’d gathered the body to the side with a ponytail holder just below her midriff.   

“Hi!” she replied brightly. “Thanks again for agreeing to do this-- I know it can’t be easy after--”

“Whoa, whoa, okay,” Ben jerked the Escort into reverse and the body shuddered as they rolled back down the driveway to the curb. “I don’t need a pity party, I need a co-pilot who’s ready to plan her wedding, okay?”

He said it without looking at her. 

“Okay,” Rey agreed. “What do we do first?”

Ben steered the car to the curb halfway up the block and they sat idling as he considered. 

“Well,” he started. “What do you have so far?”

Rey waggled her left hand and the engagement ring glinted in the morning sun. 

“This,” she replied. “I literally have this.”

Ben scowled at her hand before making eye contact. “Like we need to pawn it for money, or do you have a budget?”

Rey giggled and produced Unkar’s card from her pocketbook. “And this.”

“An AmEx card?”

“And two months,” Rey repeated. “So what kind of damage can we do?”

Ben squinted out the windshield for a moment before shifting the car into gear once more. “We’ve gotta start from the ground up,” he said decisively. “Venues first. How many guests?”

“A hundred-fifty to two hundred?” Rey spitballed. “Unkar knows a lot of people from his trading firm, and from college. My side’s pretty small, obviously.”

They drove through Ridgefield with Ben pointing out landmarks to her-- the city hall, the high school, the downtown library. It was utterly quaint and had a completely different feel than the newer neighborhood where Unkar’s house was on the outskirts of town. People strolled the streets and Rey saw neighbors talking to each other over fences. In his part of town, no one left their houses except in automobiles, fancy ones, to go back to the city to eat or shop. It struck Rey as strange to want such big houses out in the suburbs only to spend all your free time hanging out in New York. 

“So how’d you two meet, anyway?” Ben’s question interrupted her musing about Ridgefield real estate. 

Rey glanced at him and then sang her answer.

_I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar_

_That much is true_

_But even then I knew I’d find a much better place_

“Oh, bravo!” Ben steered with his knee to applaud her plaintive warbling. “Human League. Good work.” 

“Thanks,” Rey tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m not a very good singer.”

“Neither am I, apparently,” Ben shot back as they rolled into the parking lot of reception hall across town from First Order. “This joint’s alright. Worth checking out, but I think there’s a better one I’m gonna show you later so keep your knickers on, okay? Don’t let Mr. DiAngelo pressure you into saying yes today. He’s very charming, but also a little desperate.”

“My knickers are locked and loaded, sir!” Rey gave a mock salute. 

Ben smiled at that, his first real smile of the day, and Rey held her breath for a moment to quiet the butterflies in caused in her middle as she stepped out of the car. 

* * *

By three in the afternoon they’d been all over Ridgefield and Rey insisted on getting ice cream at the shop on Main street next to the dry cleaner. They had seen four venues beside First Order, and Rey’s head was spinning at all the options she had to think over. Inside or outside ceremony? Reception immediately following the ceremony, or after a short break for cocktails? Open bar, or cash bar? The sweet smell of fresh waffle cones distracted her from the nervous feeling gripping her stomach over the wedding planning. 

She would never have dreamed planning the happiest day of her life would be stressful, but that was exactly how she felt at the moment: stressed.

“You know, there’s one more place you haven’t shown me yet,” Rey said around her strawberry shake. They strolled down the street outside the shop and Rey marveled at how neat and free of graffiti the downtown area was. 

“Where’s that?” Ben took a mighty lick of his twisted swirl cone to prevent a drip running over his knuckles. 

“Your house!” Rey said it as though it should’ve been obvious.

To her dismay, Ben sat down heavily on a nearby park bench and continued licking without responding. She perched beside him and sipped at her shake, waiting for him to answer. 

“Sorry,” he finally responded. “That’s kind of a sore subject at the moment.”

Rey studied him in her peripheral vision. Several more cars passed them before she asked gently, “Because of your fiancée?”

“You mean my ex-fiancée?” Ben retorted. “Yeah, that’s part of it.”

“Sorry,” Rey offered. “I didn’t know.” 

Ben shrugged and bit into his cone before answering. “It’s alright, I have to talk about it sometime. I guess.”

Rey nodded, waiting for him to go on. 

“I live with my mom,” Ben said slowly, turning his wrist to catch another drip that threatened the backside of his hand. “Her place has a mother-in-law apartment that I kinda rent from her, and have for awhile now. It’s complicated, but we have an understanding. She needs help since my dad left, and it’s cheaper for me, so…” He trailed off. “It’s what works for now, but Baz didn’t see it that way.”

Rey glanced at him before trying, “I think that sounds lovely. I would love to live close to family, but I don’t have any.”

“Are you for real, Oliver Twist?” He laughed now, a real belly laugh that moved his stomach under his black t-shirt. “You might change your mind if you knew my mom.”

Rey laughed now, too. “I’d like to,” she offered. “Meet your mom.”

“Yeah, I dunno,” Ben shrugged. “When I stop and think back over the last couple years, I realize there’s a lot of things that should’ve been red flags to me, but I just… ignored them.”

“Like what things?”

“Just little things, you know? Like I’m an only child, and she has a lot of siblings, so her family likes to tease me that I’m a spoiled prince. And she never defended me to them.”

Rey sucked the last bit of her shake up through the straw and simply nodded.

“We also went on this trip out West, and I had never been on an airplane before, and she had? But she still took the window seat so I couldn’t see anything,” Ben continued. “Stuff like that. She can be a really selfish person, and somehow I never saw it before.”

Rey nodded again, unsure what to say now. _Sorry_ didn’t seem adequate, but neither did a platitude about everything happening for a reason.  

Ben shook his head. “Jesus, that took a depressing turn! How are you feeling about stuff? Are you on overload yet?”

Rey exhaled a shaky laugh. “I’m a little overwhelmed, yeah. Did you feel like this too?”

“Sure,” Ben said easily. “Everyone does, trust me. But just remember, the wedding’s only one day--you need to focus on how things will be the rest of your life, right?”

“Right,” Rey nodded curtly as if that settled how uncertain she felt at the moment. “It’s the rest of our lives.”

Ben stood abruptly and Rey mirrored him. He adopted a stance that looked like he was about to flee the police and she did the same. 

"Race you to the car?"

 "You're on, old man!" Rey grabbed her purse strap and took off running before Ben could even turn the right direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey is singing [Don't You Want Me](https://genius.com/The-human-league-dont-you-want-me-lyrics) by The Human League. 
> 
> HMU on Tumblr - I'm @theafterglow-writes !


	6. Chapter 6

_ July 3, 1985 _

In the month after his own engagement had abruptly ended, Ben found himself in the unlikeliest of places: florists, wedding venues, interviewing other bands and DJs, and now, on the eve of the nation’s birth, at a wedding photographer. It had been his suggestion, a shop a couple towns over who did solid work for less-than-average prices. Even if Rey didn’t seem to care about the budget, Ben suspected Unkar would feel differently when the bill arrived.

“We have lots of packages,” the elderly man explained as he pushed a services card across the desk to Rey. “You can also do an ala carte option - pick your favorite three and we’ll bundle them.”

“This is a lot of options,” Rey breathed, holding the laminated card delicately by the edges. She looked bewildered reviewing the table that listed everything from a two-day session with multiple photographers to a scant shoot for a few hours on the wedding day itself.

“Which of these comes with fries?” Ben tried to lighten the mood. “I’m kinda hungry.”

“Sorry, no food options, but you can add print services to any of the packages as well.”

The proprietor of the shop didn’t catch his joke at all but Rey giggled and that was all he wanted. 

Despite his initial hesitation to help her, hanging out with Rey was fast becoming the highlight of his week. Their wedding planning activities ran nonstop from Monday through Thursday morning before she went to waitress at First Order and he to sing at other gatherings that required live entertainment -- quinceaneras, bar mitzvahs, a high society coming-out ball, and some country club party gigs. They turned out to be pretty entertaining and a welcome change of pace from the wedding circuit. People were generally less emotionally high-strung and more easy-going and they found a broader range of songs suited these audiences. Besides, there was copious booze for the adults and decent leftovers. 

The salesman left them in peace to flip through the sample catalogs and Rey immediately turned to him with a horrified look on her face. 

“What?!” Ben asked. “I thought they did pretty good work here?”

“No, look!” Rey stabbed her finger at one of the examples. “It’s like a horror movie!”

Twin brides in matching dresses and twin grooms in matching tuxes smiled blandly back at them. The girls were each perfectly platinum blonde and the gentlemen identical down to a small beauty mark on each of their chins, all of them deeply orange-tan in a way that suggested winter homes in Florida, or at least a good strip mall tanning salon in Jersey. They looked like Barbie and Ken dolls come to life. 

“Oh, whoa,” Ben picked up the album to examine it more closely. “Do you think they can tell each other apart? I mean, do they… you know--”

“Swing?” Rey was howling now. “I was just wondering the same thing!”

A muted cough interrupted their antics and the salesman sat back down, a polite smile plastered on his face as they struggled to suppress their amusement. He clearly had no idea why they were laughing and Ben turned the page away from the nightmare twin photo. 

“I have to tell you,” the salesman began as he adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses. “We work with a lot of young people here and you can usually tell when a couple is going to make it. You two have that magic. It’s easy to see the chemistry you have.” 

Rey went absolutely still beside him for a second before stammering, “Oh, we’re not--I mean, he’s not my--”

“I’m her brother,” Ben said without hesitation, slung his arm around her jean-jacketed shoulders and adopted a shit-eating grin.

“Oh!” The man looked quite surprised. “I just thought you were--you know. Because your accents are different.”

“I’m adopted,” Rey picked up the thread. “Luckily I have a handsome older brother now to help me with all my wedding plans. But we shared a room until he went away to college a few years ago.” 

Ben glanced at her for a split second, not sure if she was joking about the handsome part. He had heard plenty of adjectives to describe his looks over the years, but handsome wasn’t usually one of them. But then, surely she was jok--

Her hand shot out and twisted his nipple through his t-shirt before he could squirm away, his skin smarting from her fingers. 

“Ow!! That’s it, I’m telling Mom,  _ sis _ !” He grabbed her in a headlock and gave her a noogie that messed up her shiny brown hair along her part.

The salesman looked helplessly between them as they wrestled. 

* * *

They sat idling at the curb by Rey’s apartment when she sprang the question on him.  

“So if you’re not busy tomorrow,” she began without looking at him. “Unkar’s throwing a little 4th of July barbeque at his place. You should come by and meet him and our other friends.”

Ben killed the engine and shifted in his seat before responding. The Fourth wasn’t his favorite holiday, but that was hardly a reason to turn down her invitation. It was sure to be a nice party, and it wasn't like he had plans. He'd spent the last few summers with Baz’s family at their beach house by the water, and he needed to make new plans. 

No, it was more complicated than that. 

This guy obviously had lots of money and a big house on the new side of town but had left her alone to plan their wedding with someone he didn’t know at all. Ben couldn't decide if he thought this Unkar was very smart, or very stupid. Ben didn't think of himself as a jealous type, not normally, but there was something about the whole situation that bugged him.

He just couldn't put his finger on it exactly. 

He wasn’t sure he was ready to see her  _ happy _ around this faceless fiancee.

“You should bring the band too,” Rey continued. “Please? It’ll be fun. I’d love for you to meet Unkar-- he’s really grateful for all the help you’ve given us.”

Her words twisted a knife in his middle. Us. Just to remind him they were a  _ them _ , and he was still alone. 

“Wouldn’t that be a little… weird?” Ben said without really answering. “For Unkar to meet the guy his old lady’s been hanging around with?”

“No!” Rey scowled now. “He’d love to meet you! Why are you acting so strange?”

“I’m not!” Ben insisted. “Look, we’ll come by if we can, but I think we have a gig at one of the country clubs in the evening.”

“Ben…” Rey grinned now. “You told me yesterday you guys don't have a gig until Saturday.”

He sighed deeply at this. She had caught him in an outright lie. 

“Please?”

Ben gazed out at the dusk, at the fireflies lighting over the lawns and the American flags stuck in people’s fences. They fluttered in the light evening breeze and a pack of children lit sparklers on their sidewalk. The whole scene made his heart ache with longing for what might have been this summer, but it felt worse to lie to her than to suck it up and face the music. Maybe Phasma and Hux would want to go, and it wouldn’t all be so bad. 

Plus there was always alcohol. 

“Okay, what time? And can we bring anything?”

“Just yourselves!” Rey brightened considerably now. “And…”

She reached into her pocket and produced a small package wrapped in a magazine page that was obviously a cassette tape. 

“I made you this.”

Ben grasped it gently, almost as though afraid he might break it. 

“You made this… for me?” He was well and truly touched. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s a bunch of random stuff I thought you might like,” Rey looked suddenly shy and twisted her engagement ring around so that it faced her palm. “It might be a little weird.”

“Thank you,” Ben tore off the wrapping and squinted to read the track listing in the low light. “It’s been a long time since anyone made me a good tape. I don’t even know half these bands. What’s this one?” 

He pointed to something that looked like a German mess of unpronounceable consonants and funny dotted letters. 

“Oh!” She nodded in approval. “Einstürzende Neubauten! I’m not sure I’m saying it right, but they’re this crazy group from West Berlin, and they have a cult-like following in Europe. I’ve heard they’re hardcore nihilists and their shows are like, transcendental if you can get past the fact that they don’t even play traditional instruments. This is off an EP I picked up in the Village.”

“So like noise rock?” Ben guessed. 

Rey grinned. “Maybe more just... noise. See what you think.”

“And some good old Ministry,” Ben smiled now. “I like them, too. This is impressive--this is some hard stuff! No fluff here.”

“See you tomorrow, then?” Rey opened the car door. 

“See you,” Ben waved her off and watched as she walked up the path to her door.  

* * *

 

_ July 4, 1985 _

 

“Rey called this a ‘little’ barbecue?” Phasma sneered when she saw the house as he looped the block for the second time trying to find a spot to wedge the Escort between the bumpers of some very, very expensive cars. 

“I guess it is if you’re rich,” Ben sighed. 

Unkar’s place was… massive. Ben wouldn’t call it stylish, but what it lacked in class it made up for in sheer, unadulterated magnitude. Every major design trope was stuffed into a single two-and-a-half story house: Greco-roman columns, a small turret room, some beam-and-plaster work that looked like a German cottage, a section that bore painted wood shingles. To boot, the whole gaudy thing was lit up by floodlights in the landscaping so each element was highlighted in all its tacky glory. 

They finally found a spot behind a gleaming pickup truck with an extended cab and ahead of a vintage Mercedes, and Ben wasn’t sorry to rub into the space with the bumper of his Ford. He’d bought this car with the first advance the band had received against their record contract and while he regretted a number of things about their professional music career, this had never been one of them. The Escort had been a trusty steed as they plied their trade up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Sure, it looked like a clown car with three people over six foot tall stuffed into it but it had never let them down.

The three of them waited patiently after ringing the doorbell twice and no one answering. Finally Phas tried the door and found it open, and the trio entered the fray.

Ben surveyed the crowd looking for the one person they all knew and was astonished to see how many tall people were in attendance. The band were all quite tall, used to being the tallest people in any room, but in this crowd, they were average. 

Not only were they average height, they were dressed completely differently than most of the guests. The men were almost uniformly attired in brightly colored polos with their collars turned up and white or khaki Bermuda shorts and leather loafers without socks. The women who hung on their arms were sleek, tanned and toned in brief summer dresses and sporting visible jewelry. Ben spotted thousands of dollars of tennis bracelets alone on the first few women he saw.

“Is this… a costume party?” Hux peeked in between them. His outfit was a dizzy array of red, white and androgyny. “They all look like Don Johnson.”

“Well,” Phasma remarked drily, “It’s too bad my douche suit was at the cleaners. You owe us big time, Solo.” 

“I dunno, Rey didn’t mention anything about a dress co--”

“Ben!” Her voice reached him above the crowd and he spotted her waving from a landing a half-floor above them. “Over here, you guys!”

Rey clutched a flute of champagne in her hand and gave them each a peck on the cheek. Ben could smell the alcohol on her as she drew him into a hug that lasted for a few seconds longer than he thought normal for simple greeting. 

She also looked drop-dead gorgeous and more done up that he’d ever seen her in a short, black cocktail dress and high-heeled sandals. 

“Rey-by!” A man’s voice boomed from behind them. “You gotta introduce me to your friends!”

Ben turned and he knew immediately which man was Unkar. A broad, sandy-haired man who Ben judged to be no more than thirty barreled towards them. Like his counterparts, he wore a neon yellow polo with a horse and rider embroidered on the breast with the collar turned partway up beneath a white linen blazer. 

“Hi, I’m B--”

“Ben!” Unkar crushed Ben’s hand with both of his own before he could even announce his name. “Rey’s told me a lot about you!”  

Rey left his side to put her arm around Unkar’s waist and beam up at her fiancee. 

“I have,” Rey said quietly. “Ben’s been a huge help so far with the wedding.”

Ben nodded at her and was about to introduce the rest of band when Unkar whistled.

“Dude!” He spat the word before taking a swig of his sweating beer. “I heard what happened at your wedding! Chicks, man, am I right?” 

Phasma shifted next to Ben and raised an eyebrow at this. 

“What about us chicks?” Her tone was cool. “ _ Dude _ .” 

Unkar spluttered for a second before recovering gracelessly. “Sorry, I didn't know we were gonna get all women’s lib here tonight! I just meant it sucks that Ben here got stood up.”

“Yeah, thanks for bringing up the worst day of my whole life again,” Ben glanced at Rey, who did her best to look mortified. Ben found himself using the same voice as with crabby teenagers at a function their parents insisted they attend. “Who's thirsty? I can get the next round of drinks?”

“This one's on me!” Unkar laughed heartily at his own bad joke. “Rey-by, you know where the bar is!”

“Follow me,” Rey motioned to them and Ben thought she mouthed  _ sorry _ before she yelped in surprise as Unkar slapped her bottom. He turned back to a cluster of his friends without another look their direction.

“Sorry,” Rey said aloud as she wove through the crowd with them in tow. “He acts like an ass sometimes when he's had too much.”

“Rey,” Phasma piped up from the back. “Where might a girl powder her nose?”

“There's a water closet down here under the stairs, or there's a guest bathroom at the top on the right,” Rey waved towards the top of the house. “Pick any one you like!”

“Grab me a vodka tonic,” Phasma instructed as she peeled off from the group. “I'm on a mission!”

“Oh, boy,” Hux sounded worried behind Ben.

For his part, Ben was preoccupied with keeping up with Rey, who cut a deft path between the taller guests to the drink refrigerator hiding under the island counter in the gleaming kitchen. 

“What would you like?” Rey asked breathlessly, her cheeks flushed from heat and wine. “We’ve got… well, everything.”

“Wine coolers?” Hux suggested as though he was waiting to be made fun of.

Rey glanced at the contents of the fridge by her knees. “Peach, berry, or citrus?”

“Ooooh, peach!” Hux fairly clapped his hands with glee. Peach was a rare flavor only Hux seemed to like, even when they were teenagers getting stupid drunk after band practice and swiping liquor from their parents’ cabinets. He always joked it was because he had been a Southern belle in a former life. 

“Vodka tonic for Phas, and I’m good, actually--I drove us,” Ben replied. 

Rey’s pouting lip gave him a weird feeling. “Are you sure? I want you to have a good time.”

“I’m having a great time,” Ben tried to brighten up. “So you have the apartment while Unkar has this whole big house?”

Rey narrowed her eyes at him while mixing Phas’s drink. 

“Lime?”

“A squeeze,” he confirmed. 

“It’s just…” Rey shrugged. “Unkar’s always working, so it’s nice to have Rose’s company. I’ll move in after the wedding--it’s just too much right now.”

Hux locked eyes with Ben over the straw he sipped his peach cooler from. He could tell immediately what Hux was thinking, because it was exactly what he was thinking himself.

“Sure,” Ben agreed, even though this seemed off to him somehow. “Well, you’ll have lots of room when you do.”

“Can I get you a water? Or a Coke?” Rey answered without addressing his comment. 

“Coke’s great, throw in some of that lime,” Ben gestured to the cutting board. 

Just then Phasma rejoined them and Ben slung his jean jacket over the barstool to gather his Coke. He didn't know why he'd bothered to bring it when the temperature was still well into the eighties in the evening. 

“Thanks.” He tipped the glass to Rey, then at the rest of the band. “Well, happy birthday, America.”

Rey was called away almost immediately and they lasted less than an hour after migrating to the back patio and overlooking the tepid game of croquet being played on the lawn. The participants seemed either very drunk or very stupid and repeated some of the same wickets they’d just played through. More than once.

“This house certainly is…. something,” Hux remarked for the third time, gazing up at the back of the structure. “Very busy design.”

“Guys,” Phasma intimated after draining the last of her watery cocktail dregs. “This guy has a mirrored headboard in the master bedroom.”

Ben stood abruptly at this. He’d only seen such a thing once at a casino hotel in Atlantic City and he didn’t want to hear any more.  

“Whoa, look at the time!” He stretched his arms high above his head. “You can stay longer, but I’ve gotta get home. I told my mom I’d help her with something.”

“Sounds great,” Phasma readied herself. 

“Should we say bye to Rey?” Hux looked worried. He was nursing his third peach wine cooler and clutched it protectively. 

“She’s busy,” Ben called over his shoulder. “Bring your roadie with you!”

He was already down the back steps and halfway around the house on the lawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I picture Unkar's house as something you'd see on the [McMansion Hell blog](https://mcmansionhell.com/). Please, if you haven't checked this out, it is well worth your time. 
> 
> 2) Unkar. SHUDDER.
> 
> 3) What else do you suppose Phasma found while she was snooping around the house...?
> 
> 4) You guys, REY MADE BEN A MIX TAPE.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading this silly romp through 1985 and hmu on Tumblr - I'm @theafterglow-writes.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey became aware of daylight around 10:30 the following morning but hid her face under her pillow to block out the relentless sunshine streaming through the master bedroom window. Unkar’s house was finally silent for the first time in fifteen hours and she assessed her condition with her eyes closed. From outside the sounds of the sprinklers ticking provided a steady point towards which she could focus.

The last thing she could recall was someone using Unkar’s newfangled music player to blast Great White at ear-splitting volumes. Thankfully by then most of the guests had departed but a few of Unkar’s fraternity brothers hung on tenaciously, headbanging and air-guitaring until they lost their balance and fell in a heap on the living room floor. 

And where was he now…? Rey lifted her head slowly, still unsure how much champagne she’d drunk the previous night, and heard a familiar muted snore coming from downstairs. 

So he was on the couch.

That was fine, she thought as she stretched and made her way to the bathroom. She felt almost human now that she was upright and once she’d showered, had some coffee and put on fresh clothes, she would feel as good as new. A yawn cracked her jaw as she idled around the kitchen waiting for the grinder to finish the beans, but it did nothing to wake her fiancee where he lay face down on the white leather cushions. Rey surveyed the wreckage of the downstairs but judged it not too bad, all things considered. A load of glassware in the dishwasher, some straightening, maybe a spot of vacuuming near the entryway-- the maid would get the rest when she arrived for her weekly once-over. 

On the barstool in the kitchen, she found a jean jacket that she recognized as Ben’s. Without thinking, she lifted it to her face and inhaled. The coffee machine beeped softly to signal the completion of its cycle and Rey blushed to think how it might look, standing in the kitchen in her nightgown smelling her friend’s clothes. She folded the jacket over the back of a chair near the door and resolved to take it to him later.   

She knew Ben hadn't wanted to come. He had brought Hux and Phasma with him but she'd lost track of them shortly after serving their drinks and had not seen them the rest of the night. Her heart sank a touch now as she stirred cream into her coffee, wondering whether they'd had a good time. They had left without saying goodbye. His strange question when she had invited him still nagged at her, wondering what Ben had meant, exactly. 

Still, it had been a good party, she mused as she ascended the carpeted stairs. Not her preferred crowd, but she was trying to fit in with the wives and girlfriends of Unkar’s friends and coworkers. Hardly any of them worked, and she didn’t yet have children, so that cut down on topics for conversation by a considerable margin. 

Rey still felt, despite having been with Unkar for nearly three years now, like an outsider looking in, trying to understand their ways and customs. She turned her face towards the shower and let the water soak her scalp. She was good at figuring things out though; every foster home she’d ever been in was the same way. There was no doubt in her mind that she’d figure this out, too. 

She’d had a drawer at Unkar’s for years, first at his place in the city and now at his house. It contained a few essentials, hardly her favorite clothes but good enough for a night or two there. She hadn’t looked in it for a couple months, first having been so busy with moving, then with all the wedding plans. 

The first thing she saw when she opened it today was a pair of underwear that she didn’t recognize. 

Rey froze, her hands on the drawer pulls, her mind going strangely blank. 

For a moment she thought some pair of his had gotten mixed up in the laundry, but when she reached for them, she quickly saw that these were not a man’s.

No, they were a bright red nylon fabric with high, French-cut legs and lined with a scratchy black lace around the waist. Rey lifted them with one finger hooked in the edge to inspect them closer. 

Her next thought was that someone from the party had used the bedroom--people had been going upstairs to the master bath all evening-- and left her panties behind. There were enough people over that no one would’ve missed one or two of them for a quickie. 

Rey’s heart thudded in her chest as she knelt bare legged on the plush carpet, just looking at them. The most obvious explanation is usually the correct one, she told herself. Someone had left them behind the previous night.

The underwear didn’t look worn, though, and for the second time this morning, Rey raised an article of clothing to her nose give it a quick sniff. 

They smelled like Unkar’s detergent. 

Rey looked up and around her and her breathing caught. She tossed her findings onto the bed and set to dressing as quickly as possible. She was still pulling her hair into a wet ponytail as she flew down the stairs to grab Ben’s jacket.

Unkar was still lying face down on the sofa and she strode quickly to him to give him a firm shake on the shoulder. His pants were unzipped and his ridiculous linen blazer was off but he was still otherwise dressed, down to his leather loafers without socks. When he failed to stir she gave him a sharp slap on the ass. 

“It’s eleven-thirty!” She fairly shouted into his ear and he began to stir. “Wake up!”

“Babe,” Unkar’s grin looked drunk as he gazed up at her. “Hey there… Where you goin’?”

“Don’t,” Rey snapped and threw the underwear on the floor by the couch. “I’m going out.”

She was halfway to her car when she heard him call after her, “Rey-by!! Don’t be like that, c’mon!”

Rey drove without seeing, blowing the first stop sign at the end of the block.

* * *

It was nearly one before Rey pulled up under the giant oak that stood outside Ben’s. She had lingered around town, first at the grocery store, then at the park for most of an hour just listening to her music, alone.

Rey was good at being alone. That much she knew. She had resolved to speak to Unkar about it later, once she’d cooled off.

Her nerves had calmed since leaving Unkar’s and she drew a deep breath as she stepped out of the car. Ben’s house was in the older part of town, and Rey always loved the look of it from the outside: a two-story Victorian with a broad porch on the front, flowers lining the front walk and a shady, cool lawn beneath massive mature trees. It looked exactly how Rey had pictured American homes before moving here. 

A petite middle-aged woman watered the flowerbed in front of the house from the hose and shielded her eyes from the sun when Rey called out in greeting.

“I wondered when you might come around,” the woman answered. Her voice had a touch of gravel to it and was deeper than Rey had imagined.  “You must be Rey.”

“Hello,” Rey extended her hand, shifting Ben’s jacket to her other. “You must be Ben’s mom.”

Leia snorted at this nicety but gripped Rey’s hand firmly. “Please, call me Leia. Ben’s told me about you.” 

Rey felt shy. “Is Ben home? He left his jacket at my fiancee’s place last night after a party.”

Leia studied her for a long moment and Rey felt inexplicably nervous, as though she were being assessed somehow. 

“Well,” she chuckled at last. “Ben hasn’t told me where he’s off to since he was about fourteen, but you’re welcome to knock. His place is around the end of the house.” Leia gestured with the hose in her hand, splashing cool water onto Rey’s sandaled feet. 

“Thanks,” Rey side-stepped the puddle on the walk. “I’ll knock.”

“Anytime,” Leia nodded. 

Rey could hear music inside as she lifted her hand to knock on the painted wood door. She couldn’t discern what band it was, only that it had a distinctly folk sound to it. It didn’t sound like the kind of thing she thought Ben would listen to, and she wondered if he’d tried her tape yet. 

When no one answered she knocked again, harder, before noticing the doorbell ringer and giving it a firm push. 

She was just about to knock one last time when the door opened. 

“Rey!” Ben exclaimed. “Sorry, I was in the shower, I didn’t hear you!”

“I--I uh…” Rey stammered, taking in the sight in front of her. The chorus of Dylan’s _Lay Lady Lay_ issued clearly from the stereo behind her friend.

Her friend, who was standing shirtless in front of her with his hair dripping wet in a pair of jeans unbuttoned at the waist. Her eyes slid down his person to notice this detail and he seemed to straighten up a tad under her gaze as though defying her to keep looking. She wanted to tell him to put a shirt on, but how could she when she had come to his door and interrupted him? Rey turned halfway away before mustering her nerve to thrust his jacket at him. 

“You left this at my place,” Rey said, her cheeks flaming again to remember how she’d smelled it this morning. 

“Thanks,” Ben reached for it and his fingers brushed her knuckles. “I realized I left it after I got back last night.”

Rey nodded, still trying not to stare at how broad his shoulders looked. Her fingers tingled where he had touched her accidentally and she shoved her hand in her pocket against the sensation. 

“You left kinda early. I hope you had a good time?”

Ben looked sheepish but he stepped aside and didn’t address her comment. “So you wanna come in, or what? I never did show you my place.”

“Uh huh,” Rey said. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside as she took in Ben’s small ground floor apartment.

It was a riot of colors, unlike Unkar’s house that was done in shades of cream and grey and her own black room. Stacks of books lined the edges of the living room area, organized by size from largest to smallest and their spines color coordinated in each stack. A few oversized houseplants sat near the windows and a red Danish modern sofa flanked by milk crates stuffed with records demarcated a living room area. Despite the late hour, a lamp with a red paper shade still glowed beside his bed.  

More to her surprise, it was as neat as a pin.

The Dylan album ended its side on the record player and the speakers hissed softly as the turntable kept rotating.  

“Well, welcome to paradise,” Ben said with a dry chuckle as he closed the door behind her. “It’s probably a little smaller than you’re used to.”

“I love it,” Rey answered honestly. “It’s very you.” 

If Ben read anything into her remark, he didn’t comment on it and instead crossed the room to delicately lift the needle on the player and return it to its cradle. 

“I didn’t know you liked Dylan,” she tried, noticing how her throat felt tight at the sight of him leaning over the player to slot the record back into its sleeve.

“I do,” Ben said simply. He didn’t elaborate.

Rey still felt the odd tension between them from the previous night when he’d asked her why she didn’t live with Unkar yet. She sensed his judgement of her relationship by the way he'd asked. 

She could picture the underwear laying on her things and wondered how it looked to a stranger, from the outside. 

He knelt in front of one of the milk crates searching for the record’s home and Rey swallowed against the sensation that rose in her as she admired the way his jeans pulled at his hips. 

She turned away to examine a poster on the wall. It was the cover of _Closer_ and Rey’s heart quickened as she heard Ben draw near again and stand behind her, contemplating it over her shoulder. Her eyes fell closed when she realized the collar of his jacket smelled like his soap, unavoidable with him this close to her and still damp from the bath. She’d never noticed him wearing cologne before, so it must be this.

“I thought this was a weird cover when it came out.” Ben’s voice was soft and close to her ear. “Especially given what happened with the band, but…”

Rey forced herself to look at it again. The figures cut in marble depicted stages of grief bent over Jesus’ tomb. She had always found the drape of the mourners’ clothes alluringly sensual and had spent hours pouring over the image. Imagining loving someone so much as to prostrate herself beside their grave, or they hers. Even now the thought caused her breathing to hitch with longing to feel that with another person. 

“I always found it kind of…” Rey hesitated. The word was on the tip of her tongue and she longed to say it out loud. She didn’t dare.

“Erotic?”

The word from his mouth raised the hair on the back of her neck and she turned to look up at him before she nodded, mute. 

His eyes were soft but they jumped down to her mouth before meeting hers again.

“Rey,” he whispered her name but she could detect a note of warning. 

“Don’t be afraid,” she answered as she reached for his hand. “I feel it too.”

One moment they were standing, the next Rey found herself swept up against him and locked in a kiss that felt like it went on for days. Ben tasted of toothpaste and coffee but Rey merely tasted _home_ , a place she had looked for all her life and suddenly found. Home felt like his hand covering her breast under her shirt as he held her to him with his other arm and walked to his unmade bed where they fell in a heap. Home was her fingers twined in his wet hair as she pushed him indelicately between her legs and he obliged without hesitation. 

With him, there was no negotiation, no bartering, no cajoling. He hummed against her and her hips bucked up when his finger breached her without warning. It was too much, too fast, too _everything_ \-- yet Rey could not get enough. Ben curled his finger softly at first, testing her, then more insistently until she dug her fingernails into his bare shoulders and shuddered with the tension that gripped her.

He drew back a moment before she crested the wave that was building in her and she pouted up at him. Her breathing was already ragged, her heart galloping unsteadily, her hair loose around her face. He knelt over her and made to take off his jeans but paused, looking very serious for a moment. 

“You want this?” 

She knew he was asking her permission but his question struck her as teasing. 

Rey had never wanted _anything_ the way she wanted him right now. She hadn’t felt a desperation for someone like this in a long, long time and she would not be denied. 

“Please,” she reached to help him, tugging his pants down with her fingers in his belt loops. Her mouth fell open when he pushed his jeans off his hips. 

Ben followed her eyes and looked a touch smug for a moment before answering. “We can go slow--”

“Come here,” Rey shook her head _no_. “Now.”

Home felt like wrapping her legs around her friend's waist at one in the afternoon on a Saturday and letting him fuck her into his mattress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HMU on Tumblr! I'm @theafterglow-writes.
> 
> OFC Unkar and his douchesicle friends would like Great White.
> 
> The album art they're looking at is Joy Division's 2nd record, [Closer](https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/joy-division/whats-on-the-cover-of-closer-by-joy-division/).


	8. Chapter 8

“Can I use your shower?” 

Rey’s question jolted Ben from the state of half-sleep that he had lain in for the last thirty minutes. He was aware of her breathing, the warmth of her skin where she lay beside him, how the light was shifting lower in the sky. So comfortable, so close to sleep, yet the slightest brush of her had him stirring.  

“Of course.” 

Without a word, she peeled herself up off his sheets and made her way to the bathroom. Ben propped up on one elbow to watch her go before flopping back on his pillow when the door clicked closed. He stared unblinking up at the ceiling until his eyes burned with dryness and he finally let them fall shut again.  

Of all the girls, _all_ the girls he knew-- it had to be her, didn’t it? The one he couldn’t have. It was just his luck. 

He listened, scarcely breathing, as the water came on and she began to hum. 

She had surprised him, showing up so soon after that miserable party with his stupid jacket, the one he’d left in her kitchen in his haste. The vibe had been weird from the moment they’d arrived and seen all the yuppie clones that she and Unkar were apparently friends with. The crowd was younger on the whole, but Ben recognized the same faces there that they saw at the country club gigs. Rey stood out amongst them even as she had dressed to fit in. It had thrown him for a loop, seeing her there. Did she _like_ that? The way that guy treated her--like she was a prize to be shown off instead of a person, an investment that was finally paying off. 

He swallowed now and his breathing went shallow at the unexpected memory of the demise of their fledgling professional music career. He knew _exactly_ what that felt like. Just the same, he knew what it felt like when all that ended.

An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach, enough that he turned on his side to try to avoid it. It followed him, though, even as he turned face down and drew the pillow over his head. 

“Sonuvabitch,” Ben whispered against the sheet beneath his cheek.    

No, he hadn’t figured on seeing her until the following Monday… when they were meant to go wedding dress shopping with Hux and Rose. 

Ben gave a dry, sarcastic laugh at the ludicrous predicament. He considered now if he could extricate himself from that particular outing. There was no way he wanted to see Rey trying on dresses.

Especially not now. 

The water stopped in the bathroom. 

Ben sat up. The band had a gig in two hours and it was a bit of a drive to the venue. His alarm clock showed nearly five and he figured Rey would be headed to First Order when she left.

Rey emerged from the bathroom wrapped his towel, her hair dripping onto her shoulders and averting her eyes. She set to gathering her things with a furtive glance in his direction. 

Even as he felt the weight of a strange guilt settling on him, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Instead, he just watched her dress. With each article of clothing she put on he felt heavier, like seeing her clothed was tying him back to a reality he didn’t want to acknowledge.

When she finished, she stood with her hip cocked and one hand in her back pocket. She had never looked more beautiful to him than right now. 

“Rey--” He started but she interrupted him. 

“I don’t suppose you have a hair dryer?”

Her question hung in the still, late afternoon air. Baz had kept a dryer here but it was gone along with her. Ben considered what she might mean: a practical request? A suggestion he get one in case they made a habit of this? Complete avoidance of the thick tension that now gripped them in place of the nervous, flirtatious energy they had enjoyed? 

“No,” he finally answered, feeling blank. “Sorry.”

Rey shrugged and turned away to collect her purse. “It’s alright. I… I have to work tonight.”

“So do I.”

“I know,” Rey finally looked at him. She opened her mouth as if to say something but bit her lips instead, perhaps having thought better of it. “Break a leg, okay?”

Ben’s heart stuttered as she closed the door behind her. 

“I _am_ an asshole,” Ben whispered to himself. 

* * *

Being at First Order was hardly her preferred location, but this evening felt like a circle of hell to Rey. She felt like curling up under the covers in her own bed, alone, with her headphones firmly over her ears and sleeping for two days. 

She was tired from the night before, she was confused about this afternoon, and the last thing she wanted was to have her bottom pinched by dirty old men while listening to this god-awful cover band slaughter White Wedding. With Ben’s band off the wedding circuit, the remaining summer wedding gigs had been divvied up amongst a handful of DJs who played the same tracklists of tired seventies disco or funk and romantic eighties ballads, and bands who covered shite faux punk like Billy Idol. Judging from the way the crowd tucked into their garden salads with champagne vinaigrette, though, Rey supposed they didn’t care that this song seemed to speak not to real, lasting love, but to the excitement of restarting a relationship that had fizzled out. 

_There is nothing fair in this world_

_There is nothing safe in this world_

_There is nothing sure in this world_

_And there’s nothing pure in this world..._

Rey heaved a trayload of empty drink glasses to her shoulder and made her way to the kitchen. It was all she could do not to sneer at the singer as she passed the stage. 

“Your face could curdle milk,” Rose hissed at her as they refilled their trays. “Is it that time of the month or something?”

Rey’s face screwed up at her roommate’s line of questioning. “No! I’m just tired--the party went late last night, there was a lot of clean-up, that sort of thing.”

 _And I found another woman’s underwear in my drawer_ , _and_ _then_ _I cheated on my fiance with a guy I only met six weeks ago_.

This part Rey kept to herself. She and Rose had become quite close already, but this was hardly the sort of thing Rey felt like analyzing as they plied back and forth to the kitchen with plates of vegetarian lasagne. There wasn't enough time in two weekends in their breakfast nook with mimosas to unpack the confusion that roiled in her middle now over her actions in the last day.

Rose pouted in a momentary show of sympathy. “You wanna get milkshakes on the way home? Dairy-Go-Round is open late on Saturdays. I bet we can make it in time?”

Rey gave a thin smile. “Deal.” 

“Deal!” Rose smiled brightly at this and hoisted the tray to her shoulder. 

Three hours later Rey had to admit, her roommate was right: the restorative power of a late-night milkshake was nothing to laugh at. Strawberry coated her insides as they parked in their driveway and made their way into the house. 

“... and shopping for your dress is going to be _so_ fun! I can’t wait to see what you choose! One of my cousins got married a couple years ago and we were at the shop all day picking out her dress, but they had champagne for the whole party!” Rose had been chattering about the wedding since they left the Dairy-Go-Round drive-through ten minutes before. “Do you have a style in mind?”

Rey shook her head as she tossed her keys in the bowl on the table in the hallway. “I’ll have to see what looks good, I guess.”

“Well,” Rose paused outside the bathroom door. “We’ll find you something, don’t worry! Good night.”

“G’night!” Rey called back and stifled a giant yawn.

“Sweet dreams,” Rose responded by wrote. 

Rey shuffled through her room and flinched when the arch of her foot touched something that felt cool and moist. She found the switch of her lamp in the dark after a moment of fumbling and the first thing her eyes saw was her pillow scattered with rose petals. 

A flash of confusion struck her, twisting her gut. Had… _Ben_ done this in some uncharacteristically forward gesture?  

Her mouth fell open as she took in her room. 

Every surface, including the rug on her floor, was covered with red rose petals. Rey gasped, her hand over her mouth, as she turned slowly to take it in. Even the pile of dirty clothes by her dresser had a layer of petals strewn over it. A giant vase stood on her desk holding dozens of flowers with an envelope propped against its vase. She crossed the small room to it, the petals tickling the arches of her bare feet. 

Her name was written in simple block printed handwriting that she recognized immediately. Rey’s heart thudded as she removed the card and read it.

_Babe,_

_Things are not what they seem._

_Please let me explain._

_I love you. XOXOXO_

_U._

Rey read and reread the card, wiping back the tears that made his writing fuzzy. 

“Surprise,” Rose’s voice interrupted her. “I hope you’re not mad, but he came by this afternoon looking for you and we….” Rose gestured to the flowers. “It’s a good surprise, right?”

Rey simply put her arms around her roommate and gave her a squeeze. 

“He didn’t tell me what happened,” Rose’s voice was muffled against her shoulder. “Just that you were mad, and you have every right to be, but he wants to talk.”

“Do you think it’s too late to call?” Rey asked honestly. It was already the wee hours of Sunday morning and Unkar was frequently passed out when she arrived at his place after getting off work at First Order. 

Rose drew away but clasped her hands around Rey’s. “I think it’s okay to call your future husband at _any_ time. Especially given… whatever all this is about.”

Rey nodded, not trusting her voice. A lump had formed in her throat as Rose said the words.

It--no, _he_ was what she wanted, after all. A husband. A protector. Someone she could call, no matter what time or what day it was. 

The phone only rang twice before Unkar answered. 

“Babe,” he breathed. “You’re finally home?” 

“I am,” Rey perched on the edge of her bed and twisted the phone cord around her index finger. “I--I’m sorry I--”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” Unkar interrupted her. “You gotta let me explain, Rey. Those underwear you found? They’re old, way old -- from someone before I met you.” 

Rey held her breath, waiting for him to go on. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for, but when she closed her eyes, all she could picture was the poster on Ben’s wall. 

“They were in an old box of stuff in the garage from my move that I asked Marie to unpack, and she thought they were yours,” Unkar’s tone was low and soothing. “She put them through the wash and stashed them in your drawer. Rey? Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” Rey whispered, suddenly feeling silly. She replayed how she had stormed out of the house twelve hours earlier like a child, throwing the underwear on the rug like it meant something. Like she knew anything. The housekeeper had simply been doing her job, and she had jumped to conclusions without even talking to him.

“I’m sorry you thought anything else, Rey-by,” Unkar continued. “Look, get some rest. Tomorrow’s Sunday brunch, right? It’s a new day, I’m not going golfing, let’s enjoy ourselves. You deserve it-- you’ve been working so hard on the wedding and I know I’ve been working a ton. We just need to hang out more.”

Rey nodded. She was suddenly tired, so very tired, from the last day’s events. 

“Okay,” she answered at last. “You’re right, it’s been hard lately. I got too much in my head, I guess. It’s a really emotional time, and it’s hard being around other people’s weddings all the time.”

“I figured,” Unkar sounded soothed now. “Remember, that job’s just temporary. We’ll find you something better after August. Get some sleep, babe. I love you, alright? Don’t let a stupid old pair of tacky underwear make you forget that.”

“Thanks,” Rey sighed. “Good night.”

“You too, babe. Sleep tight.”

She held the phone to her ear until the dial tone began to buzz. She didn't bother sweeping aside the petals to lay in bed with her elbow crooked behind her head. The foam covers of her Walkman headphones felt damp against her ears in the summer humidity as she pressed play on the tape she had been listening to days earlier. 

The wail of the guitar on this track reminded her of an old foster home that stood beside a railroad track. The locomotive’s horn for the nearby crossing started down the block and changed pitch sharply as the trains rumbled by the house, a high-low note that always struck Rey as lonely. 

This record had come out earlier in the year and she found herself listening to it more now than ever. She mouthed the words as Morrissey sang:

_How can you say_

_I go about things the wrong way_

_I am human and I need to be loved_

_Just like everybody else does…_

Rey fell into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you didn't think it was gonna be THAT easy, did you? :D
> 
> Song lyrics are _White Wedding_ (Billy Idol) and _How Soon is Now?_ (The Smiths). 
> 
> Admin note: I'm going out of town for part of the upcoming week & weekend, so the next chapter is probably 10-ish days out.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, welcome back to 1985! It's been a few weeks, so brief recap: 1) Ben & Rey did it 2) they're both guilty as hell 3) Unkar lied about the underwear Rey found in her drawer and SMDH, she believed him!

The Monday following Fourth of July weekend marked exactly five weeks to Rey’s wedding to Unkar, and the final arrangements were falling into place. The venue was booked, invitations had been mailed, RSVP’s were pouring back in, flowers had been ordered, food selected. What had once seemed a monumental task was breaking down into smaller, accomplishable ones, and Rey had moments where she could see through to the end without wanting to break down crying at how much was left to do. 

Including buying a dress. 

Rose was beyond excited by their dress-shopping excursion, moreso than Rey herself felt. Ben had offered to go with them, and five days earlier that had seemed like a great plan. 

This morning though? Now it felt like some kind of black comedy. Their stolen Saturday afternoon kept playing in her mind’s eye every time she was unoccupied for even a moment: in the shower, trying to go to sleep, making coffee that morning. She and Unkar had spent Sunday making up at his place, and everything seemed as right as rain. 

Except for how she felt every time she thought about being around Ben again.   

“Earth to Rey….?” Rose touched Rey’s arm gently. “You in there?”

Rey shook her head and placed the coffee carafe back in the machine. “Sorry, I’m just spacing out.”

Rose grinned at this. “Lady, you’ve got a lot on your mind! Are you nervous about finding a dress? Don’t worry, we’re going to find something perfect.”

Rey eased into their breakfast nook cradling her mug of coffee and took a moment to blow on the steaming black liquid before answering. It wasn’t the dress that concerned her, it was the company.   

“You said you went to high school with Ben Solo?” She asked as an indirect way of answering.

Rose’s brow crinkled in confusion. “Yeah, what about it? He was a couple years ahead of me, but we were in marching band together.” 

Rey giggled at the thought of Ben in a band uniform. “Nothing, I just…”

“You just what?” Rose slid into the nook beside her and bumped Rey’s shoulder with her own. “Spill.”

“No, it’s just… he’s been super helpful with the wedding,” Rey started. “That’s all. But I kind of think he might--” She broke off, sipping at her coffee. “I wonder what his motivation really is.”

Rose folded her hands on the table like she was praying and bit her lips. She seemed to consider her answer very carefully before speaking. 

“Well… I don’t know him super well, but I know his dad leaving them really messed him up for awhile,” she began. “He kept to himself most of the time, and then he started hanging out with Hux and Phasma--they were in band with us too-- but they were kind of loners, those three. Like a little too cool for school, you know?”

Rey simply nodded, waiting for her to continue. 

“Bazine was always way more popular than him,” Rose looked up at the ceiling, considering. “She was so pretty, was first chair in flute for all of high school, and _all_ the guys wanted to get with her. So we were kinda surprised when those two hooked up-- but I mean, we weren’t? ‘Cause there were always these rumors about Ben, that he was….” Rose made jazz hands and raised her eyebrows at Rey. “That he was -- you know.”

Rey felt her cheeks warm. “I don’t know? What does this--” She mimicked Rose’s hands, “--mean?” 

Rose rolled her eyes. “I mean, you’ve seen him. That he’s…” She made the gesture again. “A… a big guy!”

“Oh,” Rey coughed to cover the whoosh of air that left her. “I see.”

Rey saw alright. She had seen, felt, touched, and…. Her cheeks were probably the color of the red kitchen chair cushions now.

“So you think Ben might just be helping you because he… likes you or something?” Rose ventured. “I have to admit, I thought it was weird he’d offer so soon after splitting up with Bazine.”

Rey placed her coffee mug on a coaster but didn’t meet Rose’s eyes. “Yeah, something like that.”

“What makes you think that, specifically?” Rose narrowed her eyes in Rey’s direction. “Did he say something to you?”

“No, not really,” Rey didn’t consider this a lie, not exactly. Ben _hadn’t_ said he had feelings for her. She supposed there was the distinct probability that she was just a rebound to him, and the thought caused her stomach to tense. “Have you ever felt like you have a connection to someone, even if you don’t know them very well?” 

Rose grinned broadly at this. “Only every time I’ve had too many glasses of cheap wine and he’s cute!”

Rey laughed then. “Seriously, though?”

“Seriously?” Rose stood from the nook. “You need to get your shoes on, because we need to pick up Mr. Didn’t-say-anything-about-his-feelings so we can get you a damn wedding dress. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Rey agreed easily. She wanted to end the conversation before she divulged any more about her confusion over Ben than she already had.  “Let’s do this!”

 

* * *

Ben was locking his apartment door when he heard the girls pull up at the curb and honk for him. He gave a halfhearted wave in the direction of the vehicle before trudging down the sidewalk to meet them. 

Rey exited the passenger side and starting babbling nervously. Her hands fluttered up as though she made to hug him, then wave at him, before she stuffed them in her pockets to still their flight.

“Hey there, I thought maybe I should sit in back? We still have to pick Hux up and he’s pretty tall so I don’t know if you guys can both fit on the passenger side with your legs but we can try--”

“I’ll sit in back,” Ben interrupted her and motioned to the car without meeting her eyes. “Get in.”

“I’ll--okay,” Rey nodded curtly and yanked the lever to move the front passenger seat out of their way. 

“Hey Rose,” Ben stooped and gave a half-wave as Rey folded herself into the back. His Escort was a tight fit, but Rose’s shitbrown ‘82 Civic coupe hatchback was a sight smaller than even his car. He marvelled privately at the turn auto design had taken since his childhood and wondered if cars would continue shrinking as he aged until they resembled single-seat bicycles. 

At any rate, that kind of design would eliminate the current predicament he was faced with.

“Hi Ben,” Rose waggled her fingers in reply. “How have you been?”

He shrugged. “I'm alive.”

Rose's face fell but he didn't elaborate. Had Rey told her about… them? Ben supposed not, or they wouldn't be headed out in this clown car on this expedition.

Ben followed Rey into the back seat and folded his legs as best he could to make room for Hux. It made for an awkward drive, the two of them sandwiched in back like kids being driven to school.

For her part, Rey stared out the window and didn't engage in their polite catching up. She remained aloof even when Hux joined them looking the most straight-laced Ben could recall since sophomore year of high school. He and Rose began strategizing immediately how best to help Rey at the store. They were headed to a warehouse style emporium with every style dress under the sun, chosen for its vast array of makers and low amount of supervision by commission-hungry helpers.

It felt like there were two universes in the car between the front and back seats. Ben closed his eyes, letting the air from Hux’s open window sweep over him. He had the strangest sensation, like he was back in high school again and they were just headed to band practice. Like he was 16 with the whole world ahead of him, dating the prettiest girl and looking forward to getting his license. A ghost of a smile quirked the edges of his mouth as he wondered what the boy he had been would think of the man he was now.

“Oh!” Rose yelped as the Civic shuddered away from the stoplight they had paused at. “We are loaded to the gunnels today!”

Ben opened his eyes just before Rose swung the wheel hard right and they shot into the parking lot of the store. Anastasia’s shop took up the anchor store of a local strip mall, and despite the innumerable signs threatening patrons with towing, ticketing, and possible loss of limbs at the hands of a local Mafia enforcer, the cars from it took up spots in front of the laundromat, karate dojo, and video arcade that shared the block. Despite the early hour, the lot was full out to the road and they had to loop around several times before they caught a young woman loading her basket into her trunk and waited for her to back away from the laundry.

“Holy shit,” Rey breathed when they entered the door. “Where do we begin?”

Rose and Hux turned to them. 

“Okay, you two go grab a changing room, and we’ll scatter and collect different styles for you to try,” Rose said with the seriousness of a football coach imparting a game-changing play in the huddle. “That way we can move faster and you see more dresses.” 

Rey glanced at him and he could see the panic in her eyes. “But… maybe I should go with you, and the boys can hold a dressing roo--”

“No, no no-- we wanna surprise you!” Hux interrupted. “Go!”

Ben started for the back of the store without a word. He recognized Hux’s tone and knew better than to argue. In the rare moments that his keyboardist put his foot down, he was a force of nature. 

Apparently wedding dress shopping for a marriage of convenience was such a moment. 

“Are you sure they don’t need help?” Rey trailed after him at close proximity but unable to walk side-by-side down the narrow aisle of white dresses. The racks were nearly as tall as his head to accommodate the length of them, and the whole joint smelled strongly like mothballs. 

“Nope.” Ben felt monosyllabic today, as his mother liked to say. Leia leveled this charge against him in moments of extreme frustration with his behavior, usually followed by an accusation that he was acting some part more like his father than was acceptable to her.

“But how will they know what to get? Or my size?” 

He made a hard turn at the end of the row towards a corner changing stall that was miraculously unoccupied. The other stalls were already colonized by large, intergenerational parties on the hunt. They were uniformly female and more than a few heads turned as he loped by them. 

“That’s why we’re here. To figure that out.”

Rey stood near the entrance to the stall as he flopped down onto the settee. 

The silence between them stretched for minutes before Rose appeared, laden down under a giant armload of white satin, tulle and taffeta. Half her face was hidden behind the pile but her eyes shone above it. 

“Okay, I’ve got halternecks, strapless, high-low hems, mermaid, and a ‘modest’ dress, which is hideous but it might be funny to try!” 

Rey entered the stall without a word and Rose pulled the curtain closed behind them both. Hux materialized with another six hangars hooked over his long finger and hung them carefully before perching beside Ben on the worn velveteen. 

“You doing okay?” 

Ben fingered a rip on the thigh of his jeans. “Yeah.” 

Hux fixed him with a look that told Ben he wasn’t fooling his oldest friend for a second. 

“Mmmhmmmm,” Hux muttered, crossing his legs at the knee and folding his fingers over it. 

Rey emerged from the room in the most curious of dresses: a tight-fitting, ruched satin body that ended at her knees with a giant see-through skirt encircling her waist. 

“No,” he and Hux opined in unison. 

“It looks like prom,” Hux added. “Prom gone bad.” 

Her eyes met his for a split second and he shook his head _no_ again. 

“It’s bad, huh?” Rey’s nervous laughter broke the tension. 

The next dress was a sight better. The halter neck showed off her lovely slender shoulders and a modest train had Hux kneeling and fluffing it out for full effect in front of the mirror. Rose twisted Rey’s hair up, away from the collar of the dress as she turned this way and that, examining it from different angles. 

“I don’t know…” Rey trailed off. “It’s lovely, but the train is so long? I can barely walk.” 

“Okay, next!” Ben said curtly. “That’s a no from our bride.”

Rey’s eyes caught his in the mirror and he thought he saw a smile begin to crack her cheeks. 

The modest dress was a monstrosity just as Rose had promised.

Long, sheer lace sleeves covered Rey’s arms and a loop of elastic around her middle fingers held a triangle of fabric over the backs of her hands. It had a high, almost turtleneck type of collar and the way the skirt attached to the bodice obscured any sense of Rey’s waist or hips. 

Hux covered his nose and mouth with his hand as though offended. “Rose, what _is_ this dress?”

Rose took the criticism affably. “You’re right, it’s really bad! I thought ‘maybe’ from it on the hanger but…”

“It’s hot as hell,” Rey shrugged uncomfortably. “We’re getting married in August, not Siberia in January!”

She hopped off the dias and disappeared once more with Rose into the stall. 

Hux kept shaking his head. “Someone will buy that dress, poor thing. I can’t imagine who would want it.” 

“Is there a shelter for unwanted dresses?” Ben joked. “A kill-shelter?”

Hux sniggered. “I think it’s called the dumpster, but call it what you want.”

Several minutes passed before Rose poked her head out around the curtain. 

“Um, can one of you guys help us? The zipper on this stupid dress won’t go down.” 

Hux sprang up before Ben could even lean forward and he settled against the backrest once more. Rose joined him, swinging her feet as they waited. She perched on the front edge of the settee without making eye contact. 

“This is kinda funny, huh?” She said this without preamble. “Us being here all together this many years after high school?”

Ben narrowed his eyes at the back of Rose’s head, trying to discern if she meant something other than exactly what she’d said. She had been a sophomore when he was a senior, and the image of her in his mind’s eye would forever be the petite clarinetist with round glasses who tripped in the Homecoming parade and knocked a hole in the knee of her uniform. 

“I guess,” he ventured. “It’s not exactly what I pictured.”

Rose threw him a look back over her shoulder. 

“It’s good of you to help Rey like this,” Rose continued. “Are you going to their wedding?”

Ben’s breathing went shallow. For all their camaraderie during planning, he hadn’t assumed he would be invited to the actual event. Besides, he didn’t even want to be, especially not--

“Ben, I can’t budge this zipper!” Hux tore open the curtain with a flourish. “You’re going to have to try.”

“I--” Ben held up his hands in self-defense. “Maybe we should get the clerk? I don’t want to rip it or anything?” 

Rose and Hux burst out laughing but Rey looked like she wanted to die. Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink and she hiked the massive skirt up to her knees to get some air under it. 

“No one would be sad if this dress was ruined,” Rose declared. “Get in there, soldier!”

He glanced around, still looking for an employee, but the few he could spot were already occupied with other parties. Ben pressed his lips into a tight line and scrubbed his fist against his thigh before rising quickly and proceeding into the room with Rey. He yanked the curtain closed behind them. 

“Sorry,” Rey whispered. “It’s stuck at the top.”

Ben took a deep breath as she held her hair up for him to examine the zipper. It had parted just below the horizontal seam that attached the turtleneck to the shoulders and somehow come back together above it. The plastic teeth looked bent and Ben grasped the tiny metal pull, trying to force it down. It was comically small in his giant fingers and kept slipping out. 

“Motherfucker,” Ben swore. “Why did they make this tab so small?” 

Rey swallowed audibly as he tugged at the dress. Heat radiated off her body and he couldn’t help but brush the skin of her neck as he worked at the problem. First he tried running it all the way up and tugging the seam as flat as possible. Then brute force. Nothing would budge the zipper through the lump of material at the seam. 

“It’s still… holding… on!” Ben fairly panted as he lost his grip for the third time. He was breathing hard with the effort and Rey’s hair at her temples began to look damp. 

“How’s it going in there?” Rose called from outside. “Should I find someone to help?”

“No!” Rey replied, but her voice sounded high and tight with the tension. “It’s almost there!” 

Their eyes met in the mirror and this time, she didn’t look away.

“Just… rip it if you have to, we can put it back and pretend it was like that. No one’s helping us anyway.”

Ben’s retort tumbled out before he thought better of it. “I bet you’d like me to rip your dress off!”

Her eyes flashed and Rey whirled to face him. Her lips trembled but her tone was low and steady as she spoke.

“What happened Saturday was a misunderstanding, and it was my fault.” She said it as though she had been rehearsing this. “I got confused. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to lead you on.” 

“Confused?” Ben spat in a whisper. “It didn’t feel confused to me, sweetheart!” His father’s sarcastic term of endearment tripped out of his mouth and his stomach twisted angrily. As much he hated when his mother claimed he was acting like his dad, he hated it more when he caught himself doing it.

Rey’s eyes glittered and Ben could see her tears welling. “Ben, _please_ ,” she whispered now. “This is my future, not yours!” 

He braced his teeth at this and grabbed her waist, twisting her to get at the infernal zipper once more. 

“Well--what--if--it--” He punctuated each word with a sharp yank of the tab. “-- _is_!?” 

The zipper gave way and his hand shot halfway down her back before he realized he had succeeded. 

Rey heaved a great sigh of relief and clutched her hands to her chest, as if this stupid dress could actually fall down and compromise her pretend modesty in front of him. Ben sagged back against the wall for a moment before running the zipper the rest of the way down to the cleft of her rear. The zipper had bit into the edge of his thumbnail and began to bleed. 

“There,” he nodded at her reflection. He shoved his thumb in his mouth and sucked at it to staunch the bleeding.

Rey’s hand darted to her eye to wipe a tear that had escaped and they stood for a moment without speaking before he parted the curtain. 

“Oh!” Rose clapped for him. “You’re our hero! We have so many more to get through!” She leapt from her seat to help Rey. 

He stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, looking at the patterned carpet. It reminded him of the casino flooring in Atlantic City, a dizzy array of colors that was probably meant to look well-heeled. 

Hux studied him, his eyes narrowed in contemplation. “You sure you’re okay?” 

Ben gave a curt shake of his head. 

“I’m gonna get some air.”

He turned on his heel and walked blindly outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FWIW, I picture Rey's "modest" wedding dress looking like a [Gunne Sax design](https://www.etsy.com/market/gunne_sax_dress) of sorts.
> 
> HMU on Tumblr @theafterglow-writes, and thanks as always for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

_ July 30, 1985 _

If someone had told Phasma in 1979 she’d still be living in Ridgefield six years after graduating from Bishop Memorial High School, she’d have punched them in the balls. 

And yet here she was, aged 24-almost-25 years, riding the afternoon commuter train to the city to the hairdresser to get her roots touched up. She tugged her hand through her overgrown platinum locks and stared unblinkingly from behind her square, oversized sunglasses at the houses whipping by the tracks. Gradually the houses gave way to apartment blocks that made way for taller buildings, and just before they entered the tunnel that lead to the station, she spotted the Empire State building glittering in the summer sun. 

The train began its maddening slow-fast-slow gait as it crawled through track changes and Phasma rested her head back against the cushion. Alone in the seat at this late hour, she propped her booted feet up in front of her in defiance of the placard above the window forbidding it. The train’s jerking motion annoyed her and she felt restless.

The whole summer had felt restless, really. The season had been her favorite time as a girl but had become what felt like a holding pen for better things as an adult. Nothing good happened in the summer. All the good music, films, clothes-- they all came out in the fall. Halloween was in the fall and it was Phasma’s favorite holiday. This summer was especially annoying in that way with Ben's broken engagement and their subsequent change in employment format to accommodate his ennui. 

As if anyone couldn't have seen  _ that _ coming a mile away. Phasma’s lips pursed to one side in a moment of smug self-congratulation. She and Hux had detected a shift in Bazine toward Ben over a year ago and tried to tell him, but he was too busy planning out their boring suburban life together to hear it. 

She supposed it was a long time in coming. Starting from when the record company decided to drop them after cutting just one record, Ben clung to what seemed certain, and that was Bazine. The two of them were… well, an odd couple. Before he’d begun dating her, all Ben had talked about-- besides music-- was getting out of their stupid, limiting hometown, away from his family’s crazy expectations for him. At first she assumed it was just a phase Ben was going through, a metaphorical notch on his bedpost to fuck the prettiest girl in their class. Hell, even Phasma would’ve slept with Bazine, and she wasn’t completely convinced girls were her thing. For her part, Baz’s goody-two-shoes reputation seemed to benefit from dating the Marching Rebels’ resident bad boy. 

Not that Ben was actually bad, of course. No kid in marching band was  _ that _ bad. Smoking a few cigarettes and some regrettable hookups after too many whiskeys didn’t make him a bad kid. It just made him bad compared to the dorks in band who thought speeding into the school parking lot was a mortal sin. The train shuddered to a stop and the conductor’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker reminding passengers to take their belongings with them.

Phasma stood and stretched, slinging her surplus Army satchel covered with band patches over her shoulder. She was proud of this bag, having acquired it when she was fifteen on a weekend trip to DC where she’d broken away from their tour group and gone off on her own into a seedy part of town. At her height, she was unafraid not to heed their chaperone’s warnings to stay in pairs. Being tall gave her a boldness the other girls lacked. 

The subway platform was sweltering and she leaned back against a support pole listening to other passengers. 

“What’s MTA stand for, anyway? ‘Maybe a Train will Arrive’?”

“Bullshit, Metro Transit Authority,” one woman groused. “MTA stands for ‘Mothafuckers Touchin’ my Ass’!” 

Phasma grinned at this. Being taller than most men made her largely immune to grabbing hands on subways and in close quarters. When the train pulled in, she took up a seat made for two with her leg propped up on the empty side so that no one dared sit with her. It wasn’t rush hour. No need to be overly polite. 

She and Hux had kept a running bet year-on-year about the longevity of Ben’s relationship, but they’d called a truce at 21 when Ben proposed to Baz. In Phasma’s mind, this was the beginning of the end for them, even though Ben couldn’t see it yet. While they had set about pursuing their music career like banshees, Bazine had failed to launch after the cocoon of shallow high school popularity ended. A semester at community college segued into a year working as a receptionist at a salon that lead to an 18-month cosmetology program. Without Ben to dote on her constantly, she seemed to wilt, settling into weeks-long pouts while they were on the road that required him to spend their odd days home making up to her. Being dropped by their label with Snoke’s lame excuse of the market “going a different direction” provided a respite from travel just when it seemed like Bazine might throw Ben over for someone who was around more consistently, if less exciting to her than dating the front man of a touring band with a regional radio hit. 

So in June it came to them as little surprise when Bazine finally dropped Ben. What  _ did _ come as such? 

Ben’s subsequent rebound crush on the new girl at First Order. 

Phasma stepped off the subway car and took the filthy stairs leading up to the street two at a time. He had been acting weird for weeks now, ever since that wretched Fourth of July party he’d dragged them to at the girl’s fiance's house. The guy seemed like a clown, but she understood what Rey saw in him. There was a certainty to his idiotic bluster, a near-parody of masculine identity that some women liked. That, and he clearly had a lot of money. Ben offered to help Rey plan her wedding--weird enough by itself given how wrecked he was over being left at the altar--but his neuroses had kicked up a notch further since the party. 

Phasma had taken the opportunity to snoop around upstairs at Unkar’s as the boys were getting drinks. Not only had she discovered the mirrored headboard in the master bedroom, she had discovered the home office at the back of the house. A battle station with two cordless telephones and a computer terminal occupied the desk, but Phasma was more interested in the Rolodex. It was stuffed with business cards, even in the “X” section. Sure, there was a Xavier and a Xochitl in there, but most of the cards bore the names of women: Natasha, Brandy, Chastity, and Crystal. Phasma’s eyebrow had raised at these. Her own name was unusual, an Americanization of a Ukranian grandmother’s name, but if a woman’s name sounded like a drink or household item? It seemed likely that was not that woman’s real name.

She fingered the edge of Unkar’s business card that she had pilfered where it sat in her pocket as she chatted with her hairstylist. Ben said Unkar frequently worked into the evening in the city, leaving Rey alone in the suburbs. She smoothed her calloused fingertips over the raised black printing while her hair was cooking under the plastic cap. She had memorized the text, no need to look at it again. She knew exactly what it said, how many letters of certifications stood after Unkar’s name, his trading license number, and the address of his firm’s office.

An office that was on her way back to the train. Phasma closed her eyes and breathed deep the smell of ammonia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could take credit for MTA = Mothaf*ckers Touchin My Ass, but I first heard that in the incomparable Scissor Sisters song, [Let's Have a Kiki](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCD4xb-Tr8). Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but it's been awhile since the last update due to travel to a remote, wifi-less cabin (yes, that still exists!) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

“Where do you think Phas is?” Hux asked for the fourth time. 

Ben looked up from tuning his guitar at the clock in the garage and saw it was a few minutes to nine. Phasma was frequently late, but even by her standards over an hour past practice time was excessive. He strummed the instrument and nodded in satisfaction at the sound before silencing it with his hand on the fretboard. As long as the weather stayed good, his mother relinquished the garage to them as free practice space. Her car stayed parked on the street and they occupied the cramped, single-car garage with their gear. 

“I dunno,” Ben shrugged. “She usually calls if she's this late.”

Hux noodled with the reverb settings on his synth, clearly annoyed. He’d used the same settings for the last three years and only messed with it when something was bothering him before inevitably going back to the original. “It's not like her. Whatever the reason, it had better be good.”

Ben crossed his legs, cradling his instrument. “Drink?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Hux agreed dryly. “It’s hot as hell in here.”

He was halfway to the fridge when the phone’s ring stopped him. He grabbed it before his mom could pick up the line in the house.

“Ben!” Phasma's voice sounded high strung. “I'm at the Ridgefield station, I’ll be there in ten! Sorry, but I have the most amazing news!”

“Alright, well--don't crash,” Ben replied but the dial tone was already buzzing in his ear.

He turned back to Hux, gesturing with the phone. “Phasma's on her way over with _news_.” 

Hux pursed his lips in contemplation. “About what?”

Ben shrugged again. What constituted “news” to friends who’d been around each other practically every day since 10th grade was beyond him. He stooped to peer into the refrigerator and found a few lonely cans of cheap beer, one of Hux’s beloved wine coolers, and some flavored sparkling water with an unpronounceable name that Phas had procured on a trip to see extended family in Milwaukee. She had brought back a whole case of the stuff but it had sat mostly untouched in the fridge because who wanted to drink unsweetened grapefruit flavored bubbly water, anyway? Ben wrinkled his nose at the stuff before twisting one of the beers out of the pack and threading his finger around the neck of the cooler. 

Phasma burst through the door a few minutes later, dropped her bag on a lawn chair and ran her hand through her newly refreshed locks. 

“Well hello,” Hux crossed his arms. “Nice of you to drop by.”

Phas fairly rolled her eyes and started in without addressing Hux’s snark. 

“So you guys remember when we went to that party at Rey’s fiance’s house,” she seemed breathless. “And you got drinks, but I went upstairs?”

Ben’s stomach clenched immediately. “Yeah?” 

“And I found the headboard and stuff?” Phasma was fairly glowing.

“How could I forget?” Ben sat heavily on an amp and took a deep swig of beer. 

“Well, that’s not all I found,” Phasma said triumphantly and drew a business card from her jacket pocket. “I got Unkar’s business card.”

Ben and Hux stared at her. It was obvious she wanted them to ask so finally Hux did. 

“Okay? And what about it?”

“So I was just in the city at my hairdresser,” Phasma continued. “And I decided to pay our local Don Johnson’s office a visit.” 

“Phas!” They both exclaimed at once. 

“Well, first,” Phasma was pacing now, looking for all the world like a detective in a syndicated crime show winding up to the big whodunnit reveal. Albeit a punk detective in ripped jeans with white-blonde hair, combat boots and a safety pin through her pierced ear. “Unkar had some other... _interesting_ business cards. Ones for ladies with one name, if you get my drift.”

The boys looked at each other, then back at their bassist. 

“Ladies like… Iman?” Hux ventured.

“Honey, no!” Phasma brayed at Hux’s suggestion. “I’m talking about ladies of the night!”

Ben bit his lips and his breathing went shallow. He pictured them again, standing in the kitchen and how Rey reacted when he asked why she was still living in her own place. It was obvious she had her suspicions about Unkar but was choosing to ignore them. 

“But,” Ben shook his head. “Okay? So he had some cards from hookers. Look, I don’t like the guy either, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually--”

“Okay, so I went to his office,” Phasma interrupted. “Like, not in it, but I hung around outside to see if he would come out.” 

“And?” Hux was fully invested already in this yarn, but Ben raised his eyebrow at Phasma’s behavior. 

“And I followed him,” Phasma shrugged as if it were the most natural thing to follow someone you’d only met once. 

“Phas!” Ben exclaimed again. “Why are you harassing Rey’s fiance?” 

Phasma closed her eyes dramatically at his objections. When she opened them, she trained him with a look of disgust that he’d seen more than once from her.  

“Please, you of all people should know why! It’s not harassment when the person you’re following doesn’t know you’re there!” 

He picked at a thread at the edge of a rip on the knee of his jeans and shook his head wordlessly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what Phasma had seen, even if it would mean the untimely demise of Rey’s relationship with this douchebag. Above all, he didn’t want to see her hurt. 

“So he went to this bar nearby,” Phasma went on. “And he met up with another Miami Vice type for some drinks. I managed to get the booth behind theirs, and could eavesdrop pretty easily. Let’s just say, Unkar has a pretty big opinion of his charms.”

“I’ll say,” Hux muttered. “Did anyone else meet them?” 

“Not tonight,” Phasma was glowing, about to drop her big bombshell. “But the waitress was very cute and he kept hitting on her, so his friend said something like, ‘She’s really cute but you’re too old for her, right?’ And Unkar said not only was he not too old, but that he’d gotten with a younger girl than her _in the last couple days!_ ”

Ben curled his fist and rested his head on it with his elbow propped on his knee. He could picture it all too easily. He remembered to breathe intermittently, his breath leaving him in great gusts. Of course Unkar wouldn’t stop this behavior when they married-- why would he? He had no reason to suddenly respect Rey once she was effectively shackled to him. 

For his part, Hux gasped. “Get out! What a sleaze!” 

“Yep!” Phasma was smug, having bad-copped her way to a triumphant storytelling peak. “And _then--_ ”

Ben’s stomach sank further but he didn’t look up. 

“His buddy asked if he planned to stop fooling around when he married Rey, and Unkar said no, because he had the best arrangement possible, that Rey adored him but was ‘clueless’ about his girls!”

Ben shot up from the amp with his fists balled. It had been a long time since he’d wrecked any of their gear in a rage, but the only thing he could think was to kick the amp. It was just heavy enough to hurt his toe and only budged a few inches from its place on the floor. He gave it a further kick with the side of his foot for good measure and turned in a tight circle. 

“Are you alright?” Hux eyed him with concern but looked like he was triangulating the shortest path to the door in case things started getting thrown. “Don’t kill our gear over this idiot!”

“I’m not alright!” Ben fairly bellowed. “I _knew_ something was up with that guy! And she does too!! Rey’s not stupid, but I don’t get why she can’t see he’s a cheating asshole!”

“So you have to tell her!” Phasma cried. “Quit being a coward and tell her how you feel, Ben!”

He stopped moving and stared at Phasma. “How I feel…?”

“You are _so_ in love with her!”

“That you love her!”

His bandmates exclaimed this in stereo from opposite sides. Ben sank down once more on the abused amp and just looked at them. 

“You really think I should try to break them up?” 

“How is it ‘breaking up’ when one party isn’t fully committed to the relationship?” Phasma scoffed. “You have to tell her!” 

Ben’s stomach churned. After their hookup, he and Rey had remained cautiously distant, sticking to the business of her wedding planning and nothing personal. And what right did he have to shove his nose in her business? There was nothing to say they’d end up together even if she did break up with Unkar. And he knew the pain of separating from a partner. The lasting, aching pain when the initial drama subsided, all the friends had been divvied up, clothes returned from each other’s places and you were left well and truly alone in your thoughts. The point at which you could easily conclude you were destined to be alone forever.   

“Ben, for the love of the Goddess!” Hux’s exasperation broke through the haze of his thoughts. “Go get her! You’ve been wrecked for her since the night you met her!”

He looked between his friends once more before grabbing his keys where they lay in his guitar case. 

“Sorry guys, but I’ll be back!” Ben sprinted towards his car. 

 

* * *

 

By the time he reached the house Rey shared with Rose, his palms were slick with sweat. Ben sat at the curb idling his engine until he heard his dad’s voice in the back of his mind railing against wasting gas during the energy crisis. 

The house was mostly dark with Rose was mostly likely out at class, but Ben spotted movement and a light on behind the curtains that he knew to be Rey’s bedroom. 

He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. This was certainly not the best he’d ever looked: his hair well past time for a cut and hanging across his forehead, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip and a five-’o-clock shadow darkening his jawline. He dried his hands on his thighs before jerking the door open and striding up towards her house. 

He stopped dead in his tracks when he caught sight of her inside. 

She had on her wedding dress and turned to examine herself from every angle in the mirror on the back of the door. He could see her mouthing something, then holding out her hand as if to shake someone else’s. In the end, Rey had settled on a retro-looking dress with a wide, high neckline and a flared, knee-length skirt that showed off her gorgeous slender legs. The fabric was simple white taffeta without any lace or beading but complimented her beautifully. 

Ben’s heart twisted with longing at the sight, then with rage when he thought about the news he had come to deliver. And yet, he also had the inclination to turn tail and run straight back to practice. He shoved his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on his heels, just watching her. Doubt twisted his guts and he turned to his car before steeling himself and taking the half-flight of stairs to their door two at a time. He jammed his thumb at the doorbell.

It rang once and her music quieted a notch inside but she didn’t come to the door. 

He stood there with his arms crossed, feeling slightly foolish. Had she seen him? Was she avoiding him?

More than a minute passed before he opened the screen door and gave a firm knock on the wood of the door. 

It opened a second later and he was met with the sight of Rey, wearing a black Kinks t-shirt over her upper half with the bodice of her dress peeled down and hanging inside out over the skirt. He spied bright red toenails on her bare feet before his eyes jumped back up to hers. 

She was slightly flushed and her expression cycled quickly from surprise at his arrival to a guarded blankness she had worn around him for weeks now. 

“Ben? I didn’t know you were coming by.”

“Neither did I,” he said lamely. Why had he not rehearsed what he might say to her? How on earth could he say the words? He could banter at any event he was paid to do, but had never had to deliver news like this. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. 

“Well,” Rey gestured at her person. “I was kind of in the middle of something.”

“Sure,” Ben nodded agreeably. “Can I come in? I mean--do you need help?”

Rey shifted. “Well… not really, but… do you want a drink?”

She pushed the screen door towards him to allow his entry. “Take a seat, I’m gonna just--” She backed away from him, motioning at her dress again. “Change.”

His heart leapt at the sight of her, half out of her wedding gown. It was beating so hard it felt as though he’d run here from his mom’s house and he paced her kitchen to try to calm himself. He looked at the paper calendar hung on the fridge with their shifts at First Order marked in pencil. It was only two weeks until a simple set of hash marks over the weekend of August 15th denoted Rey’s time off for her own wedding. 

“Fuck,” Ben muttered under his breath. “You are such an asshole.” 

“So what’s up?” Her voice interrupted him and he whirled back. 

She had changed out of her dress and her long legs protruded from a pair of cutoff jean shorts. Her hair sat in a messy topknot on her crown and she looked up at him expectantly.

“Can I--” Ben hunched now and crossed his arms. “Talk to you?”

A tiny smile quirked the corner of her lips before she schooled it back to her default expression. 

“You’re acting kind of weird,” Rey said slowly, sidestepping him to open the fridge. “What would you like to drink?”

“I--” He was taken aback by her question. His mouth had gone dry. “Nothing, thanks.”

She raised an eyebrow before retrieving a can of Tab from the shelf inside. Ben flinched at the sharp sound of the can opening. 

“So what’s Unkar up to tonight?” He blurted this out to try to start the conversation. 

Rey froze mid-sip, eyes wide. She swallowed carefully and wiped her lips on the back of her hand before answering. 

“Working? Why?”

Ben pressed his lips between his teeth and shook his head slowly. He was pretty sure he could kill Unkar right now if he had to. 

“Are you sure?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rey didn’t meet his eyes as she slipped into their breakfast nook, one heel hitched up beside her onto the cushion. “He works long hours. I mean, he might be home by now, but--”

“Rey,” Ben couldn’t help the exasperation that crept into his voice. “Phasma--she was just in the city, and she saw Unkar flirting with a waitress. At a bar.”

Rey’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean--why was Phasma with Unkar? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Ben sighed deeply and closed his eyes. Explaining this sounded… well, it sounded nuts. Phasma’s behavior was a whole other argument to be had. 

“Do you remember when we first met?” He tried a different tack instead. “And you said you weren’t sure how serious he was about you because you’d been together for so long without  setting a date?”

“Yes, but what is this?” Rey’s lips were a thin line now and her leg under the table bounced nervously. “Answer my question.”

“Phasma followed Unkar. She was in the city, and she followed him, and she overheard him talking about how he’s... he’s been with other girls. Recently,” Ben looked at her, waiting for her to react. She had gone completely still and she was staring at him. Her eyes began to look glassy. Did he dare go on? When she said nothing, he forged ahead. 

“And… and that he doesn’t plan to stop, even when you’re married.” 

Rey continued to stare, unblinking, as one fat tear spilled out of her eye and made its way down her cheek. 

“Why are you doing this?” Rey whispered. “Our wedding is only two weeks away! Or is this because of us? There is no ‘us’, Ben--”

Ben pulled out a kitchen chair and the noise of the legs scraping on the floor cut her off. He perched on the edge but suddenly, he found the words. 

“No, I understand that. I’m telling you _because_ your wedding is two weeks away, Rey. Because all you’ve talked about is how much you want a family, the family you never had growing up.”

Rey’s face crumpled and he could tell she was trying to keep from sobbing openly now. His own eyes felt scratchy as he watched her before deciding to continue. 

“Because you deserve better, Rey,” he said softly. “Like someone as devoted to you as you are to them.”

Her gaze was cast down towards the table but she gave a curt nod of agreement. Slowly, her hand unclasped from the soda can and reached across the table. Ben looked down at it. The condensation from the can glistened on her fingers in the light of the lamp above them. 

Ben shifted forwards and stretched his own hand out towards hers. Rey inhaled sharply as their fingertips, then their eyes met. 

Her chin trembled as she gazed at him. Her fingers were chilled and damp but he felt an undeniable rush of heat as they curled into his. 

“All my life, I’ve been alone. I thought I would find answers,” Rey managed. “That being engaged and getting married would give me what I’ve been missing. But I was wrong-- I’ve never felt more alone.”

“You’re not alone,” he replied quickly. He shook his head for emphasis.

“Neither are you,” she whispered. 

Ben’s heart thudded against his ribs. Her admission made him long to hold her against him but instead he withdrew his hand gently. 

“Did you know?” He asked bluntly. “Is that why you--why we--”

“I had my suspicions,” Rey admitted, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I… found something after the party at our house that didn’t belong to me. From someone else. I left in a huff and went to your place to return your jacket.” 

Ben merely looked at the tabletop between them. 

“Fuck,” Rey breathed. “What a mess.”

He bit his lips once more as he gauged her. Finally he asked, “Would you like me to stay?”

Rey looked at him for a moment before shaking her head, eyes closed. “No. Thank you for coming, but I’d rather be alone right now. Can I call you soon?”

He rose without hesitation and nodded. “Of course. But I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

“Thanks.”

Ben let himself out and wandered slowly to the Escort. It fired up after two tries and he sat at the curb for a moment looking at her house with butterflies in his middle. He felt strange, both excited and dead tired at the same time. Like something had ended but something else had begun. 

As he drove through his hometown with the windows rolled down, the late summer evening breeze sweeping over him, his thoughts turned to Rey practicing in the mirror.

What had she been saying? Was it her vows, ones that she would certainly never speak? Thank-you’s for the receiving line? Ben contemplated the possibilities and by the time he turned into his mother's driveway, he realized he was mouthing something, too. His cheeks flushed in the dark as he sat with his keys in his hand, still warm from the ignition. He felt as embarrassed by catching himself as if she had caught him in the act.

  
_I love you, Rey_. _I_ love _you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh brother, sorry for the long wait on getting this chapter out! These last few weeks have been nuts. HMU in comments or on Tumblr @theafterglow-writes if you have questions! And thanks for continuing to read this saga. :)


	12. Chapter 12

_November 1985_

Rey heaved her giant backpack to her shoulders before leaning forwards to shimmy it into place. Taking one last look at the sun sparkling on the North Sea, she started up the hill away from the water towards the small cluster of buildings that stood at the top. She waved off a kind motorist who slowed to offer her a ride up and hooked her thumbs in the straps, hiking the distance instead at a leisurely pace. 

She was in no hurry to leave with no particular destination in mind, so Rey turned her face towards the sun, glad of the fair weather to visit this remote place. She had learned about it in school, then a stranger at a pub the night before had insisted she visit the Causeway before heading on. The morning sunshine had decided for her: it was too nice a day to waste inside. 

With her bus back to Belfast not due for several more hours, Rey idled around town before stopping in a cafe to rest. She pulled her dog eared journal from the top pocket of her bag and reread the entry she had made yesterday before jotting down a few sentences about her current adventure. Rolling the corner of her lip in her teeth, she skimmed the entries from the past month. She had been traveling for two solid months without a firm end date in mind, but Rey felt herself growing more restless at every stop. Where she had lingered five days two months prior, she now felt trapped after a single night. Even here in this magnificent place at the end of the earth, she felt the pull elsewhere. 

It had been easy to ignore at first. Reading a book or chatting with a local brought her mind back to the present. The longer she was alone in her thoughts though, the more frequently her mind wandered.

_“How will you know when it’s time to come back?”_

_Rey avoided giving him an exact answer as they stood by her gate at the airport._

_“I’ll know,” she said cryptically. She hadn’t looked back as she made her way down the Jetway, but she could feel him looking after her until she disappeared around the bend and into the airplane._  

She pulled a postcard she had been saving for just this occasion from the back of her journal and smiled to see the outdated tourist photos of the Ridgefield municipal buildings on the front. It read, “Ridgefield - An American City!” She had selected it from the creaky metal carousel at the Ridgefield drugstore when she’d stopped by to buy some travel supplies. Options had been slim, but this one had struck her fancy. 

_Ben_ , she wrote, _It’s time_.

* * *

 

Ben was halfway through the local news section of the Saturday paper and his second cup of coffee when the postman shoved the mail through the slot in the door. His early music lesson had cancelled due to chicken pox so he had an extra hour to linger before heading out. 

“You got another card,” Leia handed him a postcard without looking up from sorting their mail. 

Ben accepted it as nonchalantly as possible before noticing the pictures were from here. His heart raced as he flipped it over and read her slanted handwriting, and it felt like it skipped a beat when he realized what it meant. He reread the scant message three times before looking up at his mother.

“Good news?” Leia continued sorting mail.

“Rey's coming home,” he confirmed.

Leia raised an eyebrow at him and gave a curt nod of her chin. After his relationship with Bazine had dissolved at the altar, his mother had been uncharacteristically neutral on his love life. It was easy enough to see she liked Rey, though she was careful not to put any expectations on their tentative couplehood. She invited the younger woman over for dinner and made no remark when they sat out talking on the porch well after she retired to her bedroom upstairs. 

Or when Rey occasionally appeared at their breakfast table the next morning. 

“I’m gonna get ready,” Ben waved the postcard. “Gotta teach a lesson in a bit.”

“Tell Mrs. Carlotta I say hello,” Leia called after him. “Tell her to tell her son to come by the office about his paperwork.” 

“Of course,” Ben kissed Leia on her upturned cheek before darting out the door and around the house to his apartment.

Ben stood in front of the cork board in his kitchen where he’d tacked up a National Geographic map of the UK after dropping Rey at the airport. Her cards were pinned to their origins over it, and he squinted to make out the postmark to know where to place this one. He found the place on the map at the tippy-top of Northern Ireland and bit his lips in a grim satisfaction as he pressed the pushpin into the board. Taking a long step back, he crossed his arms and examined things for what felt like the millionth time. 

Her pattern had been erratic, first zigzagging around London, then west to Cornwall before crossing to Ireland before apparently heading north. 

_“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”_

_“I need to do this for myself,” she had assured him with her hand firmly on his chest. “Alone.”_

_“But how will you know when it’s time to come back?”_

_“I’ll know,” she said, heading away from him down the Jetway._

I love you, _he mouthed at her receding back_. 

The text of each her cards had been sparse but Ben had read each one as though it held a hidden message he would be able to decipher if only he read them enough times. The first few weeks away found her visiting old foster homes, places she’d mentioned in passing but always seemed to make her sad. He wondered what she expected from them now as a grown-up, but he hadn’t tried to keep her from them either. 

No, best to let things take their course, he thought as his eyes traced her route once more. Things unfolded as they did for a reason, and so too would this. 

Ben glanced at the time on the microwave before springing into motion. He dodged boxes to his closet to dress for his lesson.

* * *

_December 3, 1985_

“Please remember to take all your belongings as you deplane, and remember to use caution when opening the overhead bins as items may have shifted during flight.” The flight attendant’s voice purred smooth and bland over the plane’s intercom system as they taxied to the gate.

Rey wove her arms through her backpack’s straps, cradling it in her lap as she looked out at the grey, streaky sky. A few raindrops streamed back over the slick paint of the jet’s wing and shook loose as it trundled over the seams in the concrete towards the terminal. She felt shaky with excitement, but also nervous trying to imagine what it would be like to see him again after all this time.

The passengers in the rows ahead of her took forever in gathering their things and making their way down the aisle, so long that by the time she was marching into the freezing corridor linking the plane with the building, she stopped in her tracks to force herself to stop scowling. It wouldn’t do to come back after months away looking like she’d rather be elsewhere, not when Ben had driven clear out here in shitty weather to pick her up. Men in business suits and women in fur coats brushed past her, rushing forwards to meet drivers holding signs for them and being escorted outside to limos with tinted glass. 

She spotted him from the top of the escalator, standing by the baggage claim as he’d promised. He was holding a sign, too, and it wasn’t until she drew near that she could make it out. 

“Ben!” Rey waved furiously but was stuck behind a man pushing an oversized luggage cart. 

His entire face lit up when he saw her and he thrust the sign forwards proudly. It was handwritten in black permanent marker and simply read, “Rabies Butt.” 

“Heya kid,” Ben engulfed her in a bear hug. “I thought I’d missed you.”

She could smell the cold on his t-shirt, but also his laundry soap and Phasma’s cigarettes, faintly. Rey buried her face against his chest and threw her arms around him under his jacket. 

“Welcome home,” he said against her hair and pecked her on the top of her head. 

“Hi,” she suddenly felt shy, angling her face up for a kiss in front of all these strangers, but Ben leaned in and gave her a sloppy, affectionate kiss that made her knees go weak. “You wanna get out of here?”

“Phasma’s been circling,” Ben took her hand and started towards the door. “I hope the Escort’s still in one piece.”

The drive to Ridgefield took nearly an hour, and they filled the time with catching up on the goings-on of the wedding circuit. Since Rose had quit her waitressing job to concentrate on school full-time, news had been thin.

“The local DJ got busted for selling coke at a bar mitzvah at the end of September,” Phasma laughed as she wove through traffic. “So we ended up getting a lot of those gigs back.” 

“Are you okay with that?” Rey asked, glancing over her shoulder at Ben where he sat crammed in his own backseat. 

Ben shrugged affably. “It’s not our fault that these couples have bad taste in wedding entertainment. The extra money’s sure been nice.”

Rey shook her head in disbelief and watched the scenery of the country go by after they pulled off the interstate. The trees had dropped their fall leaves in her absence and Phasma drove them to her own house where they shuffled drivers. 

“Enjoy yourselves,” Phasma said with a wink to Rey before she turned towards her place. “See you tomorrow, Solo.”

Ben lifted one finger off the steering wheel in response. “See ya, Phas.”

“So is it your place or mine tonight?” Rey didn’t really care. Her room was crammed with boxes filled with her hastily packed belongings from her exit from Unkar's but the bed was still open.

Ben grinned. “Mmmm… You’ll see.”

Rey looked at his profile as he drove, wondering what that remark meant. They passed the turn for his street and he slowed several blocks later at a cul-de-sac that they had strolled down before she left. 

“Ben, what is this?” 

He merely smiled and pulled over to the curb in front of a one-story, square post-war bungalow that sat beneath a massive oak tree. A tire swing hung from the lowest branch and it swayed gently in the early evening breeze. A lamp lit the picture window in the front room and through it she could see a guitar hanging on the wall. 

“Here,” he replied, handing her the keys to the Escort. “Why don’t you go let us in?”

Rey stared at him, then at the keys. “You moved out? Of your mom’s?”

“Yeah, but then I moved in. To _our_ house,” Ben smiled more broadly now. “Go on, I’ll get your bag.”

“But…” Rey shook her head, not believing what she was hearing. “How did you aff--”

“Go!” He shooed her. “I’ll tell you later.”

Her legs felt like Jello by the time she reached the front stoop and yanked open the metal screen door, threading the key on Ben’s key ring into the old brass knob. It turned after a moment of fiddling and the door swung open to reveal a living room full of boxes. His red couch sat against the far wall next to a stack of books topped by a piece of plywood, a cracked coffee cup resting on top. 

“And here’s this,” Ben stepped in behind her and slung her bag down next to one of the cartons. 

Rey turned to him as he closed the door, her mouth still open. 

“Welcome home,” Ben said softly. 

She leapt at him, not caring that her jacket was damp or that her hiking boots probably still had mud from a pasture she’d trudged through to a bus stop. That she hadn’t showered in nearly thirty-six hours. 

“Fuck, I love you,” she managed between kisses. “I love you, Benjamin Kylo Solo!”

They managed to shed her boots at the door and Ben slung his jacket over a box before scooping her up and carrying her down the hallway to the bedroom. 

“Didn’t… make... the bed,” Ben’s lips were on her neck. “Hope it’s okay?”

“Come here,” Rey pulled him down to her atop the covers. “I need you--”

“Missed you... so bad,” Ben managed as he shed his t-shirt and her jeans joined it a moment later. 

“It’s been too long,” she gasped as he rubbed his knuckles against her knickers. They felt clammy and she shimmied to get out of them, Ben helping to guide them down over the bulge of her thick socks at her ankles. She reached for those too but he caught her hands and forced them up around his neck. 

“Leave those,” Ben murmured into her chest. “It’s cute.”

Rey sighed into his mouth as they sank into each other. It had been months since she had felt this way and she realized what she had been looking for was waiting for here all along. Visiting her old homes hadn’t brought her a sense of peace or belonging. Being in her home country hadn’t either. She had felt like an alien everywhere she went, but here in Ben’s bed in a new house-- _their_ house, apparently-- felt like coming home. 

“I wrote you a song,” Ben said sleepily as they lay beneath the quilt afterwards. 

“A song?” Rey twisted her head back to look at him. “What kind of a song?”

“It’s…” Ben trailed off, searching for words. “Not like my old stuff. I don’t even know if I like it.”

“Play it for me,” Rey suggested. “I’d love to hear it.”

Ben propped up on one elbow to look her in the eye. “Are you sure? It’s kinda cheesy.” 

“I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Solo,” Rey giggled. 

Ben leapt out of bed without another word and she hid her smile at his bare ass receding out of the bedroom. When he came back a moment later carrying an acoustic guitar Rey couldn’t help but poke fun.

“Have you gone folk on me?”

Ben merely lifted one eyebrow and slung the strap over his bare shoulder. “You’ll see.”

Rey giggled at the sight of him standing at the foot of the bed buck naked wearing a guitar. 

“Alright, here goes,” Ben nodded seriously. 

“Okay,” Rey sat up and hugged her legs. 

He took a nervous breath before beginning to strum. 

 

_I wanna make you smile whenever you’re sad_

_Carry you around when your arthritis is bad_

_All I wanna do_

_Is grow old with you…_

 

Rey’s teasing smile relaxed as the meaning of the lyrics sank in. 

 

_I’ll get you medicine when your tummy aches_

_Build you a fire if the furnace breaks_

_Oh, it could be so nice growing old with you…_

 

Tears began to form hot in her eyes but she refused to blink or wipe them. 

 

_I’ll miss you_

_Kiss you_

_Give you my coat when you are cold_

 

_Need you_

_Feed you_

_Even let you hold the remote contro_ l

 

This caused her to giggle again and the tears leaked inadvertently down her cheeks. They had gotten into a pretend argument before her trip about who got to change the channels on his mom’s television. Ben saw them and said in a stage whisper, “Please don’t cry, I’m gearing up for the big finish, here!”

 

_So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink_

_Put you to bed when you’ve had too much to drink_

_Oh, I could be the man who grows old with you_

_I wanna grow old with you_

 

The guitar’s body kept resonating from the last chord until Ben silenced the strings with the palm of his hand. She finally raised her hand to brush away the tears and shook her head in disbelief at him. 

“Well?” Ben looked anything but sure.

“Yes,” Rey whispered. “I wanna grow old with you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben's song is Adam Sandler's from the film: [Grow Old With You](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/adamsandler/growoldwithyou.html).
> 
> HMU on Tumblr if you want! I'm @theafterglow-writes.


	13. Epilogue

_1994_  
_Ridgefield, CT_

 

“Ben, if you would just _listen_ \--”

“No, I said I don’t want to! No way!”

“You’re being as stubborn as your father right now--”

“Oooooh, you brought up the dad thing? That’s low, Rey, even for you!”

Rey glared at her husband’s profile as he inched forwards in the parking Iot. Rain pelted their car and he squinted between swipes of the wipers where they furiously tried to clear the water. The rain was nigh on being solid as early November had turned unseasonably cold with several mornings of frost on the lawn had segued into three rainy days that bordered on sleet. They were stuck now, no way to back out of the line of cars and he propped his head on his hand against the door in frustration. Their arguing had begun to fog the glass and Ben ran the climate control up to high with a flick of his giant hand before clenching the wheel once more.

She bit her lips as she eased open the cassette case in her lap, without even lifting it in her gloved fingers. The box let out the tiniest squeak as the plastic pivot in the lid moved but the noise of the wipers covered it.

Rey was gauging the distance to the car stereo when Ben spoke suddenly.

“Don’t think I don’t see you.”

She dropped her head against the headrest and let out a groan of frustration.

“Why?! Why are you like this? You like all their other stuff, but you won’t listen to a single cover song? You, who sang covers for a living for six years?”

“Yeah, so I know a thing or two about covers, alright?!” Ben shot back. “There’s nothing worse than a bad cover!”

Rey scoffed at his hyperbole. “Nothing? Orphanages? People starving in Africa?”

“And,” Ben continued without addressing her retort as he pulled to the curb and set the parking brake, “Soundtracks suck for musical continuity as a matter of principle.”

“Oh, here we go again,” Rey rolled her eyes as she shifted to face him now that they were stopped. “Soundtracks serve a completely different function than traditional albums, therefore cannot--”

“--cannot be judged by the same standards,” Ben interrupted and finished. “I know your argument.”

He looked so smug she wanted to slap him. Rey imagined the muffled sound her gloved hand would make as it connected with his annoying, handsome cheek and a sense of satisfaction blossomed in her stomach just thinking of it.

“Truce?” He asked, leaning forwards preemptively for a kiss. His eyes were closed and the smallest smile quirked his beautiful, crooked lips. She hated him in this moment for thinking he’d won.

Rey sighed in mock defeat before leaning in to meet him. Just as their lips met, she glanced to her right and shoved the tape into the deck.

“Hah!” Rey crowed as she leapt back. “Take _that_!”

Ben’s eyes popped open and his face went blank for a moment before he sat up straight again, shaking his head in dismay. “Total amateur move on my part. I shoulda seen that a mile away.”

“You really should’ve,” Rey needled him.

They sat in silence as the song built from the beat of the kick drum, layered in the throbbing bass guitar and finally added the whine of the lead guitar. She could see him considering the song’s construction as the singer joined in.

_Someone take these dreams away_   
_That point me to another day_   
_A duel of personalities_   
_That stretch all true realities…_

Ben’s heel bounced in time with the drum and he began mouthing the words as the first chorus spooled out.

_That keep calling me_   
_They keep calling me_   
_Keep on calling me  
They keep calling me..._

“I don’t hate it,” Ben pronounced carefully. “The drumming sounds too mechanical for my taste, but… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I might like the vocals better than the original.”

Rey crossed her arms without making comment. The lead guitar began to take on a buzz saw quality as the track progressed, more threatening than haunting now. It was a technique this artist used a lot, and it reminded her of early experimental music.

“So you like it,” she summarized.

Ben bit his lips and repeated, “I don’t hate it.”

Rey rolled her eyes at his noncommittal judgement. He looked over at her and leaned forwards again as far as the seat belt would allow.

“Can I have that kiss now?” He gave her puppy dog eyes that still made her heart flip-flop.

Rey leaned in without hesitation this time.

Just as their tongues met, the back doors opened in tandem and they leapt away from each other like a couple guilty teenagers.

“Hi Mum! Hi Dad!” Their children’s voices filled the small space, cutting through the noise of the rain and the music on the stereo.

“Hi boys!” Rey greeted them brightly as they clambered into the car with their backpacks and wet boots. “How was school?”

“Boring,” David rolled his eyes melodramatically as his brother Ian exclaimed, “Amazing!”

The twins were having a deliberate opposite phase at the moment and Rey studied them before turning back to face forward. Ben was already trying to navigate away from the curb through the mess of station wagons and back to the main road that ran by Ridgefield Elementary. A small pang struck her at how her boys no longer wanted to dress the same and insisted on their individuality at every turn. Only last year in first grade, they had happily worn matching backpacks and coats and claimed to be interested in the exact same things--usually at the same time. Ian had always been the quieter of them, gravitating towards Ben while David looked to her for encouragement even as his natural bravado got him into scrapes more readily.

“Tell us one good thing that happened today,” Ben asked his standard question, glancing at his sons in the rear view mirror.

They groaned at this and Rey smiled at Ben. He was looking at traffic but a private smile creased his cheek.

“Nothing, it was boring, regular school,” David insisted. Then he brightened as he said, “But it was chocolate milk day at lunch!”

“Chocolate milk’s a good thing,” Ben agreed. “How about you, Ian?”

Ian was quiet for a long moment, so long that Rey folded down the visor to peek at him in the mirror. His dark hair hung almost to his eyelashes but he insisted she not cut his bangs lately. His brother had gotten his hair cut short and spiked, so Rey suspected this was just one more case of opposites.

“We know you guys are still in love,” Ian mumbled as though embarrassed to say it out loud.

“Guilty,” Ben chuckled. “How do guys you know that?”

Ian fingered the button on his rain jacket and his reply was almost inaudible with the noise of the rain.

“‘Cause you were kissing in the car.”

Rey closed the visor carefully before saying, “That’s a very nice good thing, Ian. Thank you.”

Ben glanced at them once more in the rear view mirror before asking, “So where to now?”

“Home!” They all replied in unison.

“Home it is,” Ben agreed, swinging the wheel over with a flourish as they away from the school and towards their neighborhood.

Rey drew hearts in the condensation on the passenger window, one for each of them tethered by a string like balloons to a stick figure with a ponytail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thank you for reading to the end of this!
> 
> The song Rey & Ben are listening to is the Nine Inch Nails cover of [Joy Division's Dead Souls](http://www.metrolyrics.com/dead-souls-lyrics-joy-division.html), which was on the soundtrack for The Crow (1994). 
> 
> Their twins are named Ian & David for Ian Curtis and Dave Gahan of Joy Division and Depeche Mode, respectively. 
> 
> HMU on Tumblr (@theafterglow-writes) or the Reylo FanFic Book Club Discord.


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